NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The PGA Championship press conference moderator asked Rory McIlroy to describe his opening round Thursday, and the six-time major winner needed just one word, not fit for print.
“S—,” McIlroy said after he skidded to the finish line with bogeys on his final four holes for a 4-over-par 74.
The Northern Ireland star and two-time reigning Masters champion was in danger of missing Friday’s cut to the top 70 players and ties. With the morning wave complete, only 16 players had posted worse scores than McIlroy, including LIV Golf star Bryson DeChambeau with a 6-over 76.
McIlroy hit only five of Aronimink Golf Club’s 14 fairways in regulation, after saying earlier in the week that the course did not require much strategy off the tee since a renovation stripped away many of the trees.
McIlroy also opened last year’s PGA Championship with a 74 and said he felt a “similar sense of frustration” to what he felt at Quail Hollow Club.
“I’m just not driving the ball well enough,” McIlroy said. “It’s been a problem all year for the most part.
“Yeah, 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.”
He also used a one-word answer to take a possible excuse off the table. Asked whether his pinky toe ailment bothered him at all during the round, he was quick with a flat, “No.”
McIlroy revealed earlier in the week that he had a blister under the nail of his right pinky toe that was causing him discomfort and an occasional limp. He is wearing a golf shoe a half-size bigger to fit some cushion around the toe this week.
Playing alongside Jordan Spieth and Spaniard Jon Rahm, McIlroy opened on the 10th hole with a bogey and erased it by birdieing No. 11. A string of 10 straight pars came next, then another bogey-birdie bounce-back at Nos. 4-5.
But at Nos. 6-9, his tee shots put him behind the 8-ball every time. He pushed his drive at the sixth way to the right and missed a 6-foot par save. After another inaccurate drive at No. 7, he went rough to rough before reaching the green in three.
The eighth was a 245-yard par-3, the toughest-playing hole all morning, and McIlroy failed to get up and down for par after leaving his tee ball short and right of the pin location. He traveled from rough to bunker at the par-5 ninth and left his third shot 70 feet away, leading to a three-putt bogey.
“I didn’t have great angles, either,” McIlroy said of his misses. “Then obviously you start missing it just off the edges of these greens, it gets tricky. Yeah, I felt like I did OK. 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.”
He admitted the penalty for missing a fairway is “more than what I anticipated” after previewing Aronimink a few weeks ago, with the rough creating the chance for some poor lies.
DeChambeau did not speak to reporters after his round, and he’s in danger of missing his third cut at the past four majors. He was a runner-up at each of the past two major championships.
DeChambeau missed seven greens in regulation and needed 33 putts to get through his round, which did not see a birdie until his final hole, the ninth.
–Adam Zielonka, Field Level Media
