Rory McIlroy was encouraged by his first round performance at the Memorial Tournament after he recovered from a double bogey on the 3rd hole to post a one-under 71 at Muirfield Village.
McIlroy has spoken about how he feels his prowess with the driver is hampered around Jack’s place but he was in prime position off the tee on the 3rd before splashing his second shot from 134 yards. He hit the green with his penalty shot but was unable to save a bogey from 20-feet.
Making his first appearance since the PGA Championship you could use a lack of sharpness as an excuse for a sluggish start but McIlroy showed that he is fresh as he burst into life with three successive birdies on the 5th, 6th and 7th. He only hit 7 of 14 fairways but his scrambling skills kept him alive on the 10th before he almost holed out for a slam dunk eagle on 14. He did let a shot go on the last after nearly hooking a drive into the hazard but overall he was pleased with his start as he looks towards the US Open in Shinnecock Hills.
“I felt like I played pretty well, for the most part,” said McIlroy who is yet to receive the coveted winner’s handshake from Jack Nicklaus at this tournament and trails early leaders Tommy Fleetwood, Wyndham Clark and JJ Spaun by four shots.
“Especially after making that double on the 3rd hole, to play the rest of the round in 3-under was good. Yeah, it’s a tough course. Yeah, you have to concentrate on every shot. The greens are very firm already, very fast. Get yourself above the hole, it’s very tricky.
“I felt like I did well again. Like, I would like to hit a few more fairways, give myself a few more chances from the short grass, but overall, not a bad score to build from. I would like to just see good signs in my game. I think if anything the sort of long lag putting with a lot of break is something that is quite similar to Shinnecock. It’s not similar around the greens because there’s no thick ryegrass around the greens there. So I think if I can — if I’m happy with my ball striking, and then just seeing big breaking putts and getting comfortable with that, and obviously getting myself into contention and giving myself a chance to win the tournament.”
McIlroy struggled with his driver at the PGA Championship last month and despite hitting half of his fairways today with a miss to the left, the six-time major winner feels he drove it better than the statistics suggest.
“I feel like I drove it pretty well. Again, anytime I hit driver here I’m still feeling like I’m hitting into the narrowest part of the fairway. So I hit some good drives that didn’t end up being in the fairway, but they were — I felt like they were pretty good drives. I had a couple of bad ones. I think just with the way — some of the lines you have to take with driver here, whether it’s hitting up over trees or trying to cut corners, it’s much easier just hitting into a nice, like, straight strip on the range.
“So, yeah, just some of the looks out there are a bit different. But overall, I felt like it was an improvement from what I’ve been seeing with the driver over the past few weeks.”