Rory McIlroy reveals how ‘sorry’ saved him $20,000

Rory McIlroy: Timely apology. Picture: Getty

McIlroy has won three times so far this year, but also hit the headlines in March for throwing his three iron into a lake at Doral during the WGC-Cadillac Championship.

The PGA Tour does not reveal how much players are fined for such incidents, but McIlroy said: “The fine was reduced from 25,000 to 5,000 (dollars) because I said I was sorry on the TV interview afterwards.”

McIlroy admitted he was surprised by some of the statistics surrounding his travel, competition and training regimes, which were produced by the team at Santander Spendlytics, who have developed an iOS app which tells customers how much they spend on their debit and credit cards, and where they spend it.

“When you are in the middle of it you don’t realise because it’s what you do, and then you step back and get presented with numbers and you’re like ‘Wow’,” added McIlroy.

“It’s an interesting look at how I spend my most precious commodity, my time. They’re comparing it with the money people are spending, but it’s the same thing. You don’t realise it until you see it and it’s really useful for me in managing my time a bit better.”

Despite suffering an ankle ligament injury which prevented him defending his Open Championship title at St Andrews, McIlroy had just 18 full days off in 2015 and spent 287 nights away from home.

The 26-year-old still managed to hit 16,500 balls, do 6,800 press-ups, 6,320 pull-ups and spent 6,720 minutes stretching, a massive change from the year of his first major victory in 2011.