[Photo: Jamie Squire]
Rory McIlroy’s chances of pulling off the calendar Grand Slam took a major hit overnight. The reigning Masters champion opened the PGA Championship with a four-over-par 74 that left him seven shots off of the early lead. Needless to say, the 37-year-old wasn’t pleased with the result.
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When asked to describe his round after, McIlroy offered only one, colourful word.
“S–t,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy was then asked to elaborate.
“I started missing fairways. I missed the fairway right on four, the fairway right on six, the fairway right on seven, fairway right on nine. 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,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, I felt like I did OK. I made that birdie on five to get back to even-par after the soft bogey on four, then I just got on that bogey train at the end.”
The dreaded bogey train. No golfer wants to hop aboard it, but you usually don’t see one of McIlroy’s stature taking that ride. But that’s exactly what McIlroy did down the stretch.
After birdieing Aronimink’s par-3 fifth – McIlroy’s 14th hole of the day – to get back to even-par, Rory ripped off four consecutive bogeys to finish his round. And according to stats guru Justin Ray, that’s the first time McIlroy has ever done that. In nearly 1,000 career PGA Tour rounds.
Today was the 990th official round of Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour career, including all the majors.
It’s the first time he’s made bogey or worse on each of the last 4 holes of a round.
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) May 14, 2026
On the bright side for McIlroy, he also had a one-word answer when asked if his toe – which caused him to cut a practice round short earlier in the week – bothered him at all.
“No,” McIlroy replied.
McIlroy will have until 2:05pm Philadelphia time on Friday (4:05am on Saturday, AEST) to tee off for his second round. And he’ll be hoping to catch a birdie train to get back into contention.
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