McIlroy came to Augusta favored. This surprised him after his slow start
After a struggling round in the Players Championship last month, Rory McIlroy headed to the practice range “to figure it out.
He faced the same challenge after Thursday’s first round in the 83rd Masters.
He solved the equation at Sawgrass and took home the championship trophy. He spent Thursday evening on the practice green looking for solutions after his 1-over-par 73 left him behind a posse of players in the year’s first major championship.
The positive thing, he said, “I’m surprised no one has put up a really low score. The golf course is there for the taking.”
Early-week rains softened the course, theoretically giving McIlroy and the other bombers an overwhelming advantage. But the rain giveth and the rain taketh away; the greens changed, too, despite the club’s sub-terrain system to control moisture on the greens.
He called the course soft and the greens became golf’s version of a Rubik’s Cube. “Slow,” he called the putting surfaces, and that’s a word seldom associated with Augusta National greens.
“Whenever the greens are a little slower, they don’t break as much,” he said. “And the greens were two or three feet slower today than they usually are. Sometimes that happens with the rain. It’s reading them more than anything else.”
McIlroy came to Augusta favored, thanks to the sterling start of his season. In his last six stroke-play events, his worst finish has been a tie for sixth, and he looked primed to not only collect his first green jacket but also to complete the career grand slam.
But his round got off to a rocky start, eerily similar to his final round a year ago. Then, in the final pairing with Patrick Reed, he sent his drive on No. 1 deep into the trees on the right. Thursday, his first drive went right again and his second clipped a limb.
The resulting bogey launched a wild ride that included five birdies and six bogeys. He hit only 7 or 14 fairways and 11 of 18 greens in regulation and he required 32 putts.
The first hint that he would struggle on the greens came at the par-5 second hole where his short-range birdie slipped by. He made the turn in even par, then bogeyed Nos. 10 and 11. He rescued the round with birdies on both par-5s on the back nine and another on the par-3 16th, the latter creating perhaps the loudest Augusta National roar of the day.
He went to the 17th tee one under par and looking for a positive finish to a frustrating day. Instead, he added two bogeys to his card that left him talking to himself.
“I just made too many mistakes, and that’s the problem,” he said. “And I’m making mistakes from pretty simple positions — just off the side of the greens. (Nos.) 17 and 18 are prime examples.”
McIlroy has been through the wringer at Augusta National, especially wasting a big lead in 2011 with a final-round 80. Just a year ago, most believed he would run down Reed on Sunday; instead he shot 74.
“I’ve sort of been through it all at this golf course,” he said. “But it’s fine. You know you’re going to have chances, the birdie opportunities. I can accept mistakes if I’m trying and it’s not a mental error ... but six bogeys out there is a little too much and I need to tidy that up over the next few days.”
With the sun setting and the Brooks Koepka creating some late round roars, McIlroy worked on the putting green “trying to figure this out.”
If the post-round session produces the same results as his last one, he can still dream of completing the grand slam this week. If not .... he didn’t want to consider that possibility.
This story was originally published April 11, 2019 at 8:50 PM.