McIlroy silent after first-round stumble
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy got to Long Island a week before the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and played tourist golf on blueblood courses in the Hamptons, places where you’d give your pinky finger just to sneak a peek over the fence.
When you’re a four-time major champion ranked sixth in the world, your people make a few phone calls and you tee it up with the scions of American golf at Friar’s Head, National Golf Links and Shinnecock.
“It’s a real treat to be able to show up at any golf course in the country or the world and get out and play it and have a bit of fun,” a relaxed McIlroy said Wednesday. “I think it does put you in a different frame of mind. You’re relaxed out there and maybe that sort of bleeds into your mindset whenever you’re here in a big championship.”
Oh, there was bleeding all right Thursday in the first round of the 118th Open. There was carnage. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that was just from people stuck in traffic on the Montauk Highway.
As for McIlroy, his pleasant walk in the park turned into a frustrating stumble through the dark.
One can only imagine what the Northern Irishman was thinking as he strode grim-faced to his courtesy car after posting a 10-over-par 80, but it couldn’t have been good. Normally one of the most genial and accommodating of players, he declined to speak to the media.
Whatever good vibes he was feeling last week blew out to sea on westsouthwest winds that buffeted the course, gusting to 30 mph and exposing the fangs on a United States Golf Association course set-up that left no room for error.
McIlroy, 29, started with a par on No. 10, then things quickly went awry. He went bogey-bogey-double-double on the next four holes and tumbled to 6-over par. He made the turn in 7-over and made his third double-bogey on No. 1.
It looked like he might salvage a respectable score with birdies on Nos. 5 and 6, but he promptly gave those strokes back with bogeys and Nos. 7 and 9.
Apologies if this is starting to sound a bit like the self-absorbed 15-handicapper giving you the blow-by-blow of his round at the 19th hole. Suffice to say when you’re a top-10 player in the world and you hit 7 of 14 fairways and 5 of 18 greens in regulation, you’re not going to be happy with your score.
No one disputes that McIlroy oozes with talent. He owns one of the best swings in golf and won the U.S. Open, British Open and a pair of PGA Championships before he turned 26. It’s at least mildly concerning, though, that he went into the final round of the Masters in April with a chance to complete the career Grand Slam and stumbled to a 74, and that he missed the cut in the 2016 and ’17 U.S. Opens.
Though he grew up playing in the wind in Northern Ireland, he was out of sorts in it Thursday, missing greens left, right, short and long. The 80 was his highest score, by two shots, in 29 U.S. Open rounds.
It’s fair to wonder whether McIlroy simply played too much golf in the lead-up to Shinnecock. Including the BMW Championship in England at the end of May, the Memorial Tournament the next week and the buddies golf he played on Long Island last week, he said he played 18 out of 19 days. The one day he took off, he came to Shinnecock and walked the course with his putter and wedge.
“I wanted to see the golf courses,” he said. “I have quite a few friends that live around this area and I just wanted to go out and play with them.”
McIlroy’s bags aren’t packed, but he’s going to have to fight to make the cut Friday. One thing is certain: it will not be a walk in the park.