McIlroy gets off to perfect 'controlled' start
Rory shares lead with Cantlay; DeChambeau lurks again; Tiger needs to play more
It’s free Friday at the Daily Drive — and since it’s a major championship week it’ll be a free weekend. And what a weekend it’s shaping up to be with a pretty stacked leaderboard. To start things off, here’s an offering that appeared in today’s Irish Examiner with Rory McIlroy making a big move to try to end his 10-year major drought.
Rory McIlroy walks in his birdie putt on 18 (Mike Ehrmann/USGA)
PINEHURST, N.C. — Rory McIlroy isn’t the kind of guy to peacock walk his putts to the hole, so when he strode behind his ball as it covered the final 20 feet of his flawless 5-under 65 round late Thursday afternoon it seemed like a statement moment from the Northern Irishman.
“I thought I’d left it short. That’s why I walked it off. Full disclosure,” he confessed. “It looked good though.”
Everything about McIlroy’s first round of the 124th U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 looked good, from his 11 fairways hit, to his 15 greens in regulation to his chip-in birdie on the fifth and his Tiger-esque stingers on the 12th and 14th holes that reached about a quarter of the height he normally achieves off the tee.
But best off all was his complete lack of bogeys on the scorecard, which combined with late birdies at 16 and 18 left him tied with Patrick Cantlay for a share of the lead heading to an early tee time on Friday.
“It was a really controlled round of golf,” McIlroy called it.
It certainly was for a guy who leads U.S. Opens the last five years in just about every stat except trophies. McIlroy’s embrace of a U.S. Open mindset since 2019 has galvanized all the pieces of his game into something that puts him consistently into the mix.
“Just trying to hit it into the middles of greens and giving yourself chances every single time, taking your medicine if you do hit it into trouble,” he said, though there wasn’t much medicine to swallow on Thursday. “My short game was good early on. I chipped in at 5 and had a really good up-and-down on 6, another really good up-and-down on 8. But apart from that, I think I hit every other green.”
McIlroy’s round stood in stark contrast to his high-profile playing partners – world Nos. 1 and 2 and reigning Masters and PGA champions Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. Each of them scuffled around the course all day, with Scheffler hitting only six fairways en route to a 1-over 71 and Schauffele finding just six fairways and eight greens but somehow salvaging an even-par 70.
“I didn’t hit it, chip it or putt it very well, but other than that I played pretty good,” said Scheffler.
Thursday marked the fourth time in his career that McIlroy has played the opening round of a major championship without making a bogey. The other three times came at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah and the 2014 Open Championship at Hoylake – which just happen to be the first three of McIlroy’s four major triumphs.
There’s a long way before Sunday, but it’s a nice way to build some confidence.
“Certainly the major championships that I've won or the ones that I've played well at, I've always seemed to get off to a good start, and it's nice to get off to another one,” he said.
McIlroy made three birdies in his first 10 holes to quickly climbed into third place in the afternoon. He kicked off his scoring with an impressive approach from 211 yards to 7 feet on the par-4 fourth to set up his first birdie. After getting into some waste-area trouble on the par-5 fifth, he chipped in from 67 feet for another birdie.
His third came on the par-5 10th, where his long second came to a stop just above the greenside bunker and knocked it up from there to six feet to pick up another shot.
Most of his pars along the way were relatively stress-free, the exception being on the long par-4 eighth when he rolled it in from eight feet for a save.
But despite giving himself repeated chances on the back side, McIlroy didn’t make another until 16 when his towering approach from 174 yards stopped 11 feet from the pin and then his “walk-in” finish from 20 feet on 18 polished off an inward 32 that was the low score of the day on the back side.
“I think there was a stretch there on the back nine, I birdied 10 and then hit a good shot into 11, made par, good shot into 12, made par, good shot into 13, made par, good shot into 14, made par, and I was on this run of hitting it to 20 feet and two-putting,” McIlroy said.
“I actually had a good two-putt on 15. But I just felt like my patience … I could have got a little impatient, but I felt like my patience was rewarded there with birdies on two of the last three holes. It was really nice to finish like that. As I said, a nice bit of momentum going into the morning round tomorrow.”
Bryson DeChambeau was almost perfect himself (Chris Keane/USGA)
McIlroy will have some company on a star-studded leaderboard trying to cash in with presumed better conditions in the morning. Bryson DeChambeau, who has made himself a fixture in the mix of every major this year, was working on a bogey-free low round of his own until his only stumble on his 16th hole (the seventh) left him tied fourth with morning finisher Matthieu Pavon at 3-under 67 – one back of U.S. Open rookie Ludvig Åberg alone in third at 4-under after a round in which the young Swede his every single green in regulation.
“Unfortunately didn't get it up and down from the backside (on 7), kind of made a mental error, just pushed it a little bit, didn't swing it my best,” said DeChambeau of his lone bogey. “But for the most part everything felt pretty solid. I was in a decent amount of control with my game. My putting felt solid. Really trying to control the speed. …
“But I'm certainly excited for the next few days.”
DeChambeau’s LIV Golf mate Tyrrell Hatton of England and young American Akshay Bhatia both posted 2-under 68 in the afternoon to join Tony Finau in sixth place.
By his standards, Cantlay has been kind of a mess this season. Aside from his solid third at Harbour Town and his blown final-round lead at Riviera to finish fourth, he’s posted no other top-10 finishes. He was a non-factor in the Masters, PGA and Players Championship and missed the cut last week at the Memorial.
Patrick Cantlay looked more like himself on Thursday (Logan Whitton/USGA)
So naturally it was Cantlay who fired the morning’s best round, yielding only one bogey in a 5-under 65. Cantlay paced the field in strokes gained into and around the greens, which are Pinehurst No. 2’s most devilish challenges.
“I knew going off at 7:40 in the morning, it’s going to play maybe the easiest it will play all week, with the lack of wind and probably the softest we will see it,” Cantlay said. “I’m really happy with the round I played today.”
Cantlay looked more like the guy who buried every putt he looked at in the Ryder Cup last fall, holing the necessary 7- and 8-footers that keep a good round alive in the U.S. Open. It’s been an area of his game that hasn’t been particularly fruitful this season and held him back.
“I’ve been working really hard on my game, and usually when you make just a couple changes and you’re working really hard, it’s just a matter of time,” he said.
“I think around this golf course, you're going to leave yourself putts inside eight feet. That 4- to 8-foot range, it’s important that you hole out. I did that well today.”
It didn’t hurt that his first birdie of the day didn’t require a putter, as he holed a 35-foot bunker shot on No. 11 to kickstart his day. Other than his lone bogey on the par-3 15th, he added birdies at 18, 1, 5, 6 and 8.
Tiger Woods’ game simply doesn’t hold up without reps (Logan Whitton/USGA)
Tiger picks the wrong ‘poison’
There is no point in dancing around the obvious. For Tiger Woods, the idea that he can be competitive at some of the toughest venues in the game without the ability to play and prepare is all the more apparent.
A 4-over 74 in the opening round of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst was simply more evidence of what has been obvious for some time — Woods needs to play more, but his physical limitations make that difficult.
So he attempts to manage his physical shortcomings, then has rounds like Thursday, where he hit 12 of 14 fairways but could manage to hit just nine of 18 greens, then couldn’t overcome his mistakes.
“I'm physically getting better as the year has gone on,” he said. “I just haven't been able to play as much because I just don't want to hurt myself pre (tournament), then I won't be able to play in the major championships.
“It's pick your poison, right? Play a lot with the potential of not playing, or not playing and fight being not as sharp.’
Woods chose the latter and that’s where he is coming up short.
Despite hitting his driving accuracy, Woods rarely gave himself good birdie chances. He birdied the par-5 10th — his first hole — when he hit a nice pitch from a scruffy lie at the 610-yard hole. He also birdied the other par-5, the fifth, after the hitting the green in two from 260 yards and two putting.
But other than the par-4 15th where he had a 15-footer for birdie that he missed, Woods really had few other chances. He was mostly trying to scramble after missing a green or putting from long distance.
He ranked outside of the top 130 in the 156-man field in strokes gain approach to the green, typically the hallmark of his game.
“I didn’t hit my irons particularly well,” he said. “Didn’t putt that great. Drove it on a string all day. Unfortunately I just didn’t capitalize on it. … I was somewhat conservative in some of my end points. Then again, I didn’t hit the ball very well, either. It added up to quite a bit of distance away from that flag.”
Woods said that aspect of his game was a work in progress. He came to Pinehurst for a practice round last week and then played nine holes each day on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
“It wasn't as good as I'd like,” he said. “I was pretty one-dimensional early in the week, which is interesting. I was drawing the ball a lot. Now I'm cutting the ball a lot. Welcome to golf.”
And that can cause problems at Pinehurst, which presents some very challenging and sloping greens. Woods, who teed off at 7:29 a.m. Thursday, noted the challenge, which resulted in a round that took more than five-and-a-half hours.
“This golf course is all about the greens,” said Woods, who trailed leaders Cantlay and McIlroy by nine shots. “The complexes are just so difficult and so severe. There aren't that many scores that are low.
“It's hard to get the ball close. In most golf courses you play, you hit shots into where it's feeding off of slopes into flags … collecting. Here everything is repelling. It's just hard to get the ball on top of the shelves.
“You know if you miss it short side, it's an auto bogey or higher. Being aggressive to a conservative line is I think how you need to play this particular golf course.”
Woods, 48, is playing just his fourth tournament of the year but has just two competitive rounds since the Masters, scores of 72-77 at the PGA Championship last month.
He will have work to do in order to make the cut, which is for the top 60 and ties. There is little margin for error, with a score of par probably being necessary to make it to the weekend.
For Woods, that would be a solid result, given all the obstacles. But it’s clear if he wants to be a factor at these tournaments, he will need to play more. That probably means getting better physically.
That is unlikely to happen in time for next month’s British Open. So what about next year? That poisons will have to be picked another day.