McDowell Boots Bag After New 2019 Rule Ruins Round

G-Mac's ball on the 18th hole was found 12 seconds after the three minute mark

McDowell Boots Bag After New 2019 Rule Ruins Round

Graeme McDowell made a triple-bogey on the 18th hole in the first round of the Open Championship to drop to two over par.

However, had this been a year ago he may well have closed with a par and shot one under.

This isn't last year however, and unfortunately for Graeme McDowell he wasn't able to find his ball within the new three minute time frame.

Painfully for the Portrush man, his ball was found after three minutes and 12 seconds.

He showed his pain by kicking out at his golf bag, which may well have caused his foot some pain too.

"To conduct myself as well as I did all day and play as well as I did all day, and then to finish like that was -- it hurts, you know, it hurts a lot. But it's golf. It's golf.

"I got to not let this spoil my week, because it could easily spoil my week. I feel like all the air has been let out of the sails plus some. The ship feels like it's sinking. It's not air out of the sails, it's everything."

"I thought it was a hell of a rule there until about 12 minutes ago," he said of the new three minute ball search rule.

"It's amazing, 5 minutes feels like a long time when you're looking for a ball. And 3 minutes feels like no time at all.

"We had 30 people over there looking for that thing. 12 seconds after the 3 minutes was up we found it. We found my ball.

"It was a lie where I could have gotten it in the fairway. It wasn't a great lie. Unfortunately it was 10 yards right of where I thought it was. For some reason, no one saw it and the marshals didn't get an eye on it."

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