Up, down and around the slopes and hollows, all the drives down the middle, a chip there, a flop there, every lag putt to the hole, every short into it, the ball just a stroke away from where it is wanted to be. He shot a carefree 66, with seven birdies, and only one bogey. He was paired with Collin Morikawa, who shot 72, and Xander Schauffele, who shot 69, but at times it felt like they were only there to help put the way McIlroy was playing into perspective, like those little diagrams people included in the image to give it a sense of scale. Morikawa is the reigning champion golfer of the year, Schauffele just won the Travelers and Scottish Open back-to-back and is in better form than any player on Tour, but they have struggled to keep up. “It was awesome,” Morikawa said. “That’s what I need for the next three days.” On the fifth par, McIlroy’s drive hit an old boundary stone. It cost him about 30 yards. The first she knew was when someone pointed it out. “I think I’ve still outdone the other two.” He got another birdie. Fans watch Rory McIlroy as he prepares to tee off on the 4th hole. Photo: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian He had made his first day on the opening hole, with a 30-foot putt that set his morning like ham and eggs on the bed. There was a third in the 6th and a fourth in the 7th. But it was his par at the 8th that he singled out as one of his favorite moments of the round. “I hit a good putt for birdie on the 8th hole, but I hit it three feet. I wasn’t as comfortable with the second shot, but I went up there, committed to it and holed a nice putt.” None of this was as clear cut as he made it seem. “There are critical moments in the round, it could be little things like that 8th place, it’s the little places that test you.” Especially when play was as slow as it was here, where heavy traffic on the large double greens led to the round taking the better part of six hours. This meant that players spent a lot of time leaning on their clubs in between uses and had to focus in and out of focus when they finally stepped up to deal with the situation they were in in the final minutes. McIlroy did perfectly. He made his one bad mistake at the 13th when he tried to get too cute with a chip behind a greenside bunker and whistled the ball well over 60 feet past the hole, but made up for it by rolling the shell to the cup for a bogey. with stings. At the 614-yard 14th, he unleashed such a powerful drive that he was able to play a wedge onto the green. He went over the back and had to get up and down for his birdie. At the 17th was another of those pivotal little moments when he found himself 85 yards out but with such a difficult lie that he worried he was going to thin the ball down the middle of St Andrews. “I cut a little vacuum wedge down there and pulled it. But I played the right shot so if I missed it, it wasn’t in too bad of a spot, but I could then get it up and down.” Quick guide
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Thanks for your response. At that point, he had already accepted in his mind that “four would be a good score.” Which sums him up right now, he looks like a man who knows exactly what he’s trying to do and how he wants to do it. It wasn’t always like that. McIlroy has subscribed to many different theories in the eight years since he won his last major, tried brainstorming, tampered with his swing, accepted two different gurus and even dabbled in self-help. Now, he says, he “had his hands back” and stopped listening to all the different people he employed to tell him “how to play.” After all, he said, “I’m pretty good at this game.” It sure is. He sounds like a man in control. The only question now is whether he can keep it up until Sunday night.
