McIlroy faces uphill task after opening 76 at Sawgrass
Rory McIlroy watches his tee shot on the eighth hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. on Thursday, June 16, 2022. (Jeff Haynes/USGA)
Rory McIlroy faces a race against time to find his driving and putting for the Masters after a dismal 76 left him struggling to make the cut in The Players Championship.
The world number three refused to blame his high-octane group alongside Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler, the game's top two, for a four-over 76 that owed as much to his loose play off the tee as his lukewarm putter.
He's gone six months without missing a cut, but his highest first-round score since the 2021 Masters leaves him with just the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play to get ready for Augusta should he miss the weekend.
The 2019 champion likely needs to shoot in the sixties today to avoid missing the cut for the third time in five starts at the Stadium Course and he admits he's struggling to replace the driver he used last year.
"Look, I wish I could use my driver from last year, but I can't just because you use a driver for so long basically it just wouldn't pass the (COR) test," said McIlroy, who confessed "user error" contributed to his missing eight fairways. "The more a club is used, the more it's hit, the more springy the face becomes. This one is as close as it's been."
McIlroy ditched his 2023 model after being outdriven by Tiger Woods at Riviera, but the replacement is not working and he failed to take advantage of six "gettable" holes yesterday.
Starting at the 10th, he carved his opening tee shot into thick rough, found more long grass in two and then scuttled through the green into sand before taking three more to get down for a double-bogey six.
He would birdie the par-five 11th, but he failed to take his remaining chances, three-putting the 16th for par from just 26 feet before making another six at the 601-yard ninth.
He also bogeyed the first and par-three third after wayward tee shots, and while he pitched close to birdie the 371-yard fourth, he didn't see short grass at the ninth until he made his longest putt of the day, a six-footer, for his six.
"I feel like this is as penal as I've seen it out of the rough for a long time," he said of the rough. "You don't hit it on the fairway here, you're going to struggle."
He added: "The three-putt on 16 was probably the one that sort of stopped any momentum. I hit a really good shot out of the pine straw there and didn't capitalise on that, and making bogey on one and bogey on three sort of was tough to get it back from there."
He was 12 shots behind the unheralded American Chad Ramey (30), who fired an eight-under 64 to lead by a shot from two-time Major winner Collin Morikawa.
In the Magical Kenya Open, Tom McKibbin's two-under 69 left him five shots behind John Catlin and Dylan Mostert as Gary Hurley shot 72 and John Murphy a 79.
It was also a struggle for Olivia Mehaffey, who shot back-to-back 79s to miss the cut in the Investec South African Women's Open, where AIG Women's Open champion Ashleigh Buhai fired seven-under 65 to lead her national open by four strokes on 15-under at halfway.
