First he was on both knees, then just the one. Rory McIlroy stooped over his ball nestled close to the lip of the bunker beside the 17th green, trying to figure out how on earth he was supposed to get it out. You expect he was probably also berating the fool who put him there.
McIlroy stood up again, then got down again. One knee? Yes, probably one knee. Right then, let’s give it a go and see what happens. McIlroy, somehow, splashed it to eight feet.
Only then he missed another putt and dropped another shot. Another bogey on a par 5, another frustrating walk to the next tee. Royal Birkdale was threatening to bring McIlroy, quite literally, to his knees.
In truth, though, he was doing as much of that himself. Moments earlier, the Northern Irishman, having missed his approach left, flopped from the other side of the putting surface, landed his ball on the green but watched it dribble off into the now-meddlesome trap. McIlroy thumped his wedge into the turf in frustration.
But on this remarkable topsy-turvy opening loop, where magic was so often followed by misery and then magic again, he stuck his approach from the first cut on the 18th to four foot from 220 yards and, this time, drained it to finish on two-over. It felt a whole lot better than three-over.
‘Just too many stupid mistakes,’ said McIlroy. ‘But every time I made a stupid mistake, thankfully I made a birdie to sort of keep myself in it.
‘Not too far away. Hopefully we’ll get the better conditions tomorrow and maybe the greens are a little bit smoother in the morning. Go out there and shoot a good one and get myself right back in it for the weekend.’
‘Just too many stupid mistakes,’ said McIlroy. ‘Hopefully we’ll get the better conditions tomorrow and maybe the greens are a little bit smoother in the morning’
McIlroy’s main problem was on the greens where he was uncharacteristically off form
McIlroy took a long time to decide what club he should take on the ninth. He’d just missed a tiddler for birdie, one of many short putts to go awry, so stood on the tee box looking down the 414-yard par 4 ahead of him thinking what to do about it.
After another few moments, he walked back to his bag and pulled out the big dog. The gallery roared with delight. McIlroy stepped up and let rip. Over the corner it flew, whistling through the breeze, before coming to rest on the green, 60 feet away from the hole and a putt for eagle.
The tracker recorded his drive at 389 yards. Playing partners Xander Schauffle and Matt Fitzpatrick were still 150 yards away. The Northern Irishman rolled his eagle putt to three feet and took his first birdie of the day.
It was as though McIlroy had come to decide the best approach on the opening day around Birkdale, with its scorched fairways and rough that was burned into straw, was to whack it as far as you could off the tee and deal with rest when you got to your ball. Or, perhaps, just to follow disappointment with fury and a flourish.
The issue for the Masters champion, however, was that it was once he got on to the green that his real problems began. On the very next hole, he missed another four-footer – his third in four holes – to give the birdie straight back to the course on the 10th, then handed it another shot after missing a nine-footer on the 11th.
On the eighth, when another four-footer lipped out, McIlroy flipped his cap back, and waved his hands around asking why his putt had broken that way when he was certain it would move another. That came after another missed four-footer had cost him a shot at the seventh.
McIlroy had looked at less than 12 feet for birdie on the par-3 fourth earlier in his round but ended three-putted for bogey, having watched a two-footer skirt past the hole.
By the end of his turbulent round, with still a few groups to finish behind him, he ranked 148th out of 156 for strokes gained putting. That even took into account a 24-footer drained for birdie on the 13th and another from 12 feet on the 15. If only he could have found the one from 10 feet on 16.
‘I missed a couple early on that looked like they were going to break one way and they actually went another way, and then when you get the next one, you’re over it and it’s just very hard to trust that the ball is going to do what you think it’s going to do,’ said McIlroy. ‘Then you maybe don’t make quite as committed of a stroke.
‘It seems like when it gets like that on a day like today, you just keep leaving yourself four-footers. I left one to pretty much tap-in range on 9 to make a birdie. Then I missed three four-footers in the space of four holes, and that’s a tough — it’s tough to get out of that and stay committed to what you’re trying to do on the greens.’
‘I’m not going to go back to the house and analyze it too much tonight. Again, focus on the positives, which was I took it on off the tee and drove the ball very, very well, hit some really good shots. I made too many sloppy mistakes and just need to cut those out.’
