Rory title defence in tatters after a 79
McIlroy’s bid to retain title in tatters after a disastrous 79
NO player has ever completed a successful defence at the Players Championship at Sawgrass and Rory McIlroy will certainly not be the first this year.
In his last scheduled stroke play tournament before the Masters next month, the Northern Irishman was ill at ease with all 14 clubs and duly paid a heavy price on a layout fraught with danger, running up a calamitous first-round 79.
This was his lowest point since posting an equally disastrous opening round at the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush but that was all about succumbing to the emotion of playing on home soil.
Rarely do you see the 31-year-old looking as non-plussed as this, as countless shots headed in a destructive arc to the left. One such blow came at his opening hole, the tenth, leading to a double bogey that set the troubling tone.
Far worse arrived at the 18th, where not only his drive but the four iron that followed finished in the water hazard to the left of the fairway. Three putts to finish meant a quadruple-bogey eight and an opening nine completed in 43 shots.
He equalled two unwanted records, tying the worst nine-hole score of his PGA Tour career and his worst score on a single hole.
Having played his way out of the tournament, McIlroy showed plenty of pride thereafter but three miserable putts at the ninth meant he equalled the worst opening round by a defending champion, matching the 79 shot by Sandy Lyle in 1988.
After a disappointing 76 at Bay Hill last Sunday, McIlroy talked about the difficulties of trying to bed down a different swing pattern and, clearly, there was no progress yesterday.
‘It’s hard to recover from a poor start when you’re trying to figure it out on the course as you go along, and you don’t really know where the bad shots are coming from,’ a dejected
McIlroy said. Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley believes McIlroy’s problems are as much mental, however, as technical. He questioned the wisdom of his current hectic schedule, with this being his fifth event in a row. ‘Inspiration and hunger are big things for Rory, he seems to tune in and tune out and it’s certainly a case of tuning out at the moment,’ said the Sky Sports analyst.
‘He looks stale, meaning there’s no excitement about what he’s doing. I just hope he doesn’t over-react, because he hadn’t been playing badly this year up to this round.’
McIlroy’s meltdown was put into sharp focus by playing partner Sergio Garcia, who beat him by no fewer than 14 shots to set a blistering early pace.
The 41-year-old Spaniard is something of a course specialist. He has never missed the halfway cut in 16 appearances, was the winner in 2008 and has had three other top-three finishes.
Speaking after his round,
Garcia admitted he had been in danger of being late for his tee time.
‘I left the range at 7:35, I was teeing off at 7:40, so I figured it’s going to take me probably two, three minutes at most to get to ten,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if the clock on the range was behind or something, but when I got to the putting green just like 50 yards short of ten, I kind of looked at it and the sun was coming up, so I couldn’t see if it was 7:38 or 7:39, but just in case I just took a little stroll, made sure that I got there before it turned to 40.
‘But I think it was just about to turn to 7:39, so I had a little bit more time than I thought.’ On his 65, the Spaniard added: ‘I’ve always said it, Valderrama and this course are some of my top favourite ones and for some reason it kind of fits my eye. ‘I see what I want to do pretty much every hole and then it’s a matter of doing it but definitely I feel more comfortable and I’ve done well here. So all those things help.’
Two Englishmen bang in form also began well. Matt Fitzpatrick — 5th, 11th and 10th in three US events this year — shot 68 to be tied second among the morning wave while Lee Westwood, runner-up last Sunday at Bay Hill, shot 69.
‘I could see going out this morning that nobody was going to burn it up, you were going to have to play conservatively sometimes, smart golf, and that’s what I tried to do,’ said the 47-year-old.
‘I’m not short but I’m not one of the bombers out here. I’m going to be suited more to Bay Hill or here or Honda next week where you have to shape it into some of the fairways. I can use a bit more guile and cunning to get round this kind of golf course.’
Bryson DeChambeau, the man who beat him, was part of the afternoon wave.
Scotland’s Russell Knox shot a one-under par 71 but it wasn’t such a good day for compatriot Robert MacIntyre who struggled to a 74. The other Scot in the field, Martin Laird, bogeyed his last two holes to finish one over.
Spare a thought, though, for the Korean Byeong-Hun An. He came to the notorious 17th hole at just one over par. He finished 11 and 6 for an 83.
“I didn’t really know where the bad shots were coming from”
It was a low point in Scotland captain Stuart Hogg’s illustrious career, an embarrassing moment he admitted was a ‘schoolboy error.’ When he failed to touch down in the corner unopposed against Ireland in Dublin last year, he said he wanted the ground to swallow him up.
So was it mind games or plain mischief when Ireland captain Johnny Sexton brought up the incident yesterday in the build-up to this Sunday’s Six Nations clash at Bt Murrayfield?
‘It was a schoolboy error,’ said Hogg at the time. ‘I’m gutted with how that happened. I can’t change what’s happened now. I just need to get on with it.’
Ireland went on to win 19-12 that day and followed it up with a 31-16 win over Scotland, again in Dublin, in the Nations Cup in December.
Scotland have won just one out of the last ten matches between the sides — a 27-22 win in the 2017 Six Nations at Bt Murrayfield.
If Gregor townsend’s men are to improve that woeful record this weekend, they can ill afford to let such glaring chances go a-begging.
Sexton, (below right)when asked how Ireland have restricted the Scots to one win in ten, replied: ‘A little bit of luck and some fine margins as they were very, very even games. Both teams had big purple patches in those games and we probably capitalised more.
‘they will look back when Hogg dropped the ball over the line as that’s a big moment in that game — they could have won that for the first fixture of last year’s Six Nations.
‘In the last game we played them in the Autumn Nations Cup, they dominated a large part of the first half, but were only leading 9-3 and we got a couple of scores before half-time and then a couple of scores straight after half-time, so we just capitalised on our pressure and they didn’t.
‘they, I’m sure, will look back at those and say: “Look at these opportunities that we had, we just need to be more clinical. We need to just make sure we’re better this week and keep improving”.’
Scotland second row Scott Cummings, who has played in the last three losses to Ireland, said they had ‘put to bed’ previous defeats and were working hard on their game plan to beat the Irish.
He admits Scotland must improve their discipline, with
Duncan taylor being yellowcarded in the 27-3 loss to Ireland in December and Zander Fagerson being shown a red in Scotland’s last Six Nations game against Wales.
‘Discipline is something we talk about,’ said Cummings. ‘the red card happened against Wales and it’s how we adapt to getting them. I’d say our discipline has been pretty good over the last two games, apart from one or two key instances, obviously.
‘It’s definitely been a focus for us, not giving away as many penalties and making sure we don’t let teams back into the game by doing that because it can snowball. It gives them territory and puts you on the back foot.’
the 24-year-old said his team knew what to expect from Ireland as one of their strengths was the longevity of their top players such as Sexton.
‘Ireland have a lot of the same sort of players they have played with in their team for the past five or six years at least, so we know what they’ll bring,’ he said. ‘they’ll keep possession constantly, so we’ll have to be very strong defensively and on form in attack, too.
‘After the loss to Ireland in December we were pretty disappointed, and it certainly wasn’t the result we were looking for, but we put that to bed and there’s been a lot of rugby played since then.
‘there were those two Six Nations games which happened at the start of the tournament, where we beat England at the start and then we went close against Wales, but didn’t quite get over the line. We’re happy with the way things are going just now heading into the Ireland game.’
townsend is set to pick Cummings to start against an Irish side that will see only minor changes to the one that started against Wales. Prop WP Nel is expected to come in for the suspended Fagerson while centre Sam Johnson is due to take the place of James Lang. Winger Darcy Graham did well against Wales but townsend is in two minds to start him again or bring in the more experienced Sean Maitland. townsend was full of praise for the way Cummings has been playing and is expecting a top-class display from him on Sunday. He is also pleased at the way he has passed on his knowledge to young, uncapped players who have been training with the Scotland squad for experience.
‘there has been great control from the Scotland pack, particularly against England’ said the Scotland head coach, talking to the in-house SRU podcast.
‘We didn’t lose a line-out that day and stole two or three of them. Jonny Gray is in charge of the defensive side of the line-out and Scott Cummings is in charge of the attack side and they did a great job.
‘We have young players in our camp who are learning off the best players in the country. We had Alex Samuel and Max Williamson, two young second rows, a year out of school, with great potential training alongside Grant Gilchrist and Scott Cummings.
‘they were involved in physical sessions with them, live mauls, live defence and they were picking up what Scott and Grant do in the line-out in terms of preparation. If they want to be the best players they want to be, they will retain what they learned from them.’