IN FEATURED GROUP, RORY STANDS OUT TO LEAD BY ONE
TULSA—Rory McIlroy fired his best opening round in a major in 11 years on Thursday, seizing the lead in the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Championship that saw Tiger Woods struggle in his second comeback event from a car accident 15 months ago that almost cost him a leg.
Chasing his first major title since the 2014 PGA, the seventh-ranked McIlroy fired a five-under-par 65 to grab a one-stroke lead over Will Zalatoris and Tom Hoge even as Woods literally limped to a 74.
Justin Thomas, Matt Kuchar and Mexico’s Abraham Ancer fired 67s to be another stroke back.
Sparked by four consecutive birdies—matching his longest such run in a major— McIlroy duplicated his effort in the 2011 US Open, which he won for his first major title.
“It was a great start to the tournament,” McIlroy said. “It was nice to get off to that good start and sort of keep it going.”
A four-time major winner, McIlroy started on the back nine with 15-time major winner Woods and Jordan Spieth before a huge crowd.
Limping Woods
Woods, who returned to PGA play last month in the Masters, 14 months after a car crash left him unable to walk for months, birdied the 10th and par-3 14th, but made bogeys on six of his last 10 holes, while Spieth, chasing a win for a career Grand Slam, stumbled to a 72.
“Off to a good start,” Woods said. “Hit a lot of bad iron shots late. I just never got the ball close to have any good birdie putts. I kept putting it into bad spots. “It was a frustrating day.” McIlroy, who last led a major round at the 2014 PGA, has had poor major starts, but the Masters runner-up reeled off four consecutive birdies from the 12th.
The 33-year-old from Northern Ireland put his approach inches from the cup and birdied the par-4 12th, escaped a bunker for a tap-in birdie on the par-5 13th and made a 26-foot birdie putt on the par-3 14th.
“When your game is feeling like that, it’s just a matter of going out there and really sticking to your game plan, executing as well as you possibly can,” McIlroy said.
Zalatoris, with four topeight efforts in seven major starts, made a career-best 150 feet of putts, including birdie efforts from 30 feet on the ninth, 23 feet on No. 12, 26 feet on the 13th and 24 feet on the seventh.
“It’s super fun whenever you have days like that,” Zalatoris said. “It was kind of a bizarre day.”
Hoge, a February winner at Pebble Beach, was happy with his 66 as well.
“I was scrambling pretty good and got up-and-down on all of them,” Hoge said. “That really gave me some momentum going forward.”
Thomas, the 2017 PGA winner, sank a 20-foot birdie putt on 18 to pull within two of McIlroy.
Woods, the former world No. 1 now ranked 818th, admitted his surgically repaired right leg “hurt.”
“My leg is not feeling as good as I would like it to be,” said Woods.