Even more alarming than an opening round of 79 for Rory McIlroy at the Players Championship was the Northern Irishman’s ominous assessment of his current struggles. “It’s very hard, especially when you’re trying to figure it out as you go along on course,” McIlroy said. “You’re trying to figure it out but you’re not really sure where the shots are coming from. It’s hard to at least to try to eliminate one side of the golf course, basically.” With now less than a month to go until the Masters, McIlroy finds himself in a race against time.
A return to Sawgrass, where McIlroy won in 2019, was supposed to kickstart his season. Instead, he took a double bogey at the 10th – his 1st hole – having found forest from the tee. McIlroy twice landed in water to the left of the 18th fairway and reached the turn in 43.
He said: “I just think it’s hard to recover when you just haven’t played good. Regardless, if you take that 18th hole out it still wasn’t a very good day.” Indeed, McIlroy’s wayward long game mirrored struggles on the greens. The four-times major winner, who has slipped to No 11 in the world, had 34 putts. He three-putted four times.
McIlroy’s frustrations were surely only intensified by how easy his playing partner, Sergio García, was making things look. The Spaniard, a Sawgrass specialist, signed for a 65 to race into the early lead but had words of comfort for his Ryder Cup teammate.
“On this course, you don’t have to be that far off to get penalised a lot,” García said. “So it happens. You try to force things a little bit and unfortunately for him, it bit him a little bit. But I told him when we finished, just go out there tomorrow, get at it and you never know. I shot seven under so he can shoot seven under tomorrow and hopefully make the cut.” In at least proving McIlroy’s problems were not unique, Henrik Stenson delivered six sixes and a seven en route to an 85. Rickie Fowler and Ian Poulter both produced 77s.
Lee Westwood continued the fine form he displayed at last weekend’s Arnold Palmer Invitational courtesy of a 69. “It’s a run of tournaments that we’ve done before,” Westwood said. “I always play well when I play on a run rather than stop-start.” Matt Fitzpatrick and Corey Conners both bettered Westwood’s score by one.
