Mcilroy Opens With 74 After Five-Fairway PGA Start

mcilroy opened the PGA Championship with a 4-over 74 at Aronimink Golf Club, and only five fairways found. That left the reigning Masters champion seven shots back after one round and with work to do in a major where the margin was already gone.

Aronimink Golf Club

He started by missing right on the 10th, advanced the ball only 70 yards, and made bogey. The round kept sliding from there. McIlroy missed right again on the fourth hole and slammed his driver, then missed right on the sixth, seventh and ninth holes and bogeyed all three.

“I'm just not driving the ball well enough,” he said after the round. “It's been a problem all year for the most part.”

McIlroy Off The Tee

The driver numbers tell the story. McIlroy hit just five fairways, even though he leads the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee this season. He also said, “It's a bit of back-and-forth that way,” and, “I pride myself on driving the ball well.”

That contradiction has shown up before. He shot 74 in the opening round at Quail Hollow last year and finished T47 at the PGA Championship. Since the event moved from August to May in 2019, he has not finished better than seventh.

PGA Championship Pressure

McIlroy said, “I honestly thought I'd figured it out,” after noting he had hit it well on Sunday at Quail Hollow and at home on Monday before this round. He also said the ball flight goes wayward once he gets under the gun, which is the problem he now has to solve at Aronimink.

Scoring was difficult on Thursday, but his opening round still left him in chase mode immediately. Seven shots back after 18 holes, he will need a cleaner tee ball to avoid spending the rest of the PGA Championship trying to dig out of an early hole.