Rory McIlroy Had One Word to Describe Abysmal Opening Round at PGA Championship

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Rory McIlroy had a one-word response when asked to describe his opening round at the PGA Championship: “S---.”

He did go on to elaborate, but clearly a 74 at Aronimink Golf Club is not what the reigning Masters champion had in mind when the year’s second major championship began Thursday.

McIlroy came into the tournament hoping to become the first player since Jordan Spieth in 2015 to win the first two major championships of the year.

And McIlroy—who played with Spieth and Jon Rahm—was in decent shape when he birdied the fifth hole at Aronimink (his 14th of the day) to get back to even par for the round.

Then he finished with four consecutive bogeys to shoot 74 on the par-70 layout. It was the first time he had ended a major round in such fashion.

“I started missing fairways,” he said. “I missed the fairway right on [No. ] 4, the fairway right on 6, the fairway right on 7, fairway right on 9. From there, it’s hard—I didn’t have great angles either. Then obviously you start missing it just off the edges of these greens, it gets tricky.

“I felt like I did O.K. I made that birdie on 5 to get back to even-par after the soft bogey on 4, then I just got on that bogey train at the end.”

McIlroy rued an issue he got away with in winning the Masters—his driving accuracy.

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He hit just five of 14 fairways in the first round and ranked outside of the top 120 in the field in strokes-gained off the tee as well as strokes-gained tee to green.

McIlroy still managed to hit 12 of 18 greens but took 34 putts.

“I’m just not driving the ball well enough,” he said. “It’s been a problem all year for the most part. I’ve sort of got ... like I miss it right, and then I want to try to correct it. And then I’ll overdo it, and I’ll miss it left. It’s a little bit of back and forth that way.

“So that’s pretty frustrating, especially when like I pride myself on driving the ball well. I just need to try to figure it out. I honestly thought I’d figured it out.

“Coming in here, I hit it well on Sunday at Quail Hollow [during the final round of the Truist Championship, where he tied for 19th], and then hit it good at home on Monday. Then even—obviously I had to curtail the practice round Tuesday, but hit it decent yesterday. Just sort of, once I get under the gun, it just seems like it starts to go a little bit wayward on me.”

McIlroy referenced his Tuesday practice round where he quit after a few holes due to a blister on the little toe of his right foot that bothered him last weekend. He quickly dismissed it as an issue.

Now his challenge is to find a way to get to the weekend. He ended the round four shots back of early leaders Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, Min Woo Lee and Ryo Hisatsune.

The 36-hole cut is for the top 70 players and ties.