Rory McIlroy Handed Two-Shot Penalty At Abu Dhabi Championship

Rory McIlroy was handed a two-shot penalty during the first round of the Abu Dhabi Championship for improving his lie on a chip shot.

McIlroy originally made a double-bogey six on the 12th hole after an attempted chip up onto the green rolled back down the slope and dropped into a divot.

As the Northern Irishman then addressed the ball to have another go, his club flattened down some of the rough behind his ball, which was deemed to be improving his lie.

That six was then turned into a quadruple-bogey eight as McIlroy's four-under round of 68 became a two-under 70 - in a big blow to his Race To Dubai chances.

McIlroy was shown the close-up video of the incident after his round and, while he insisted there was no intent, he admitted "it doesn't look very good" as he accepted the penalty.

"They showed me a video from 12," said McIlroy explaining the incident. "As I went to sort of just get a feel for the lie, the close-up of the camera, you can see like a little piece of grass around the divot sort of lies down as I put my club down behind the ball, and I guess the grass doesn't return back to its original position.

"Obviously there's no intent. I play by the rules. I try to do everything that I can to never end up in these positions.

"But just by looking at the video, like it doesn't look very good. Obviously that wasn't my intent. I'm just trying to get a feel for the lie.

"The ball is in a sort of bottom of a sandy divot. I'm trying to feel like if I can get a 54-degree onto the back of the ball, but in the process, this piece of grass has sort of laid down. I guess the technical term for the rule is if you press down on the piece.

"I don't feel like I pressed down. But at the same time, I don't want the perception of, like, people thinking like I got away with something either. So I'm happy to take a two-shot penalty and move on and move into tomorrow."

The penalty is a big blow to McIlroy, who had hit a hat-trick of back-nine birdies to card his original round of 68, which was two shots better than Race To Dubai leader Eugenio Chacarra.

The Spaniard leads the double Masters champion by just under 1,000 points so McIlroy needs to finish well above him to cut the gap, but they ended day one in Abu Dhabi locked together in T33 on the leaderboard.