It’s not every day you get to challenge one of the game’s great ball strikers to a long drive competition but that’s just what Scottish amateur Ruben Lindsay did to Rory McIlroy at The Renaissance Club today.
The Turnberry player, back in Scotland after competing on the collegiate circuit out of Houston, was hitting balls on the range alongside the four-time Major champion, who starts his Genesis Scottish Open challenge tomorrow.
Lindsay, who finished 11th in the Cameron Corbett Vase last weekend, decided to approach the World No 3 to see if he want to have a quick long-drive competition and the Northern Irish legend was happy to oblige.
The Scottish player went first and smashed it 374 yards with 195mph ball speed. Rory was not far behind, unleashing one 352 with 188mph ball speed.
Lindsay said: “I was just practising after playing the pro-am and saw that Rory was there, coming towards the end of his session.
“And he looked like he was about to leave and I just looked at Sam and I thought ‘ok’, this is the last opportunity I am going to get, this year anyway, to ask Rory for a long drive.
“I have always thought ‘I could get Rory in a long drive’ and people would say I’m crazy so Sam said: ‘Yeah I’ll give you £20’ and I was like ‘ok, I’ll take that’ and just walked up to him and introduced myself and said ‘I’ve heard you’re pretty long and do you mind having a long drive?’.
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“And he agreed in typical Rory fashion so…yeah it was a pretty cool moment.”
McIlroy is back in the UK as he prepares to try and win his second Open Championship at Royal Liverpool next week. Tomorrow he is due to tee it up alongside Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele at 7.59 at the renowned North Berwick venue.