NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Rory McIlroy offered a succinct (and colorful) summation of his opening 74 at the PGA Championship.
“S--t.”
That’s still more than Bryson DeChambeau offered.
Two of the game’s biggest stars struggled on Day 1 at Aronimink, with McIlroy closing with four consecutive bogeys and Bryson DeChambeau making birdie on his final hole of the day to sign for a 76.
DeChambeau declined to talk to the media afterward.
McIlroy, meanwhile, elaborated on his round but did little to hide his disappointment. He was even par standing on the sixth tee (his 15th hole of the day) when he began flaring his tee shots to the right.
His four consecutive bogeys to close were a career first.
“I’m just not driving the ball well enough,” he said. “It’s been a problem all year for the most part. I miss it right, and then I want to try to correct it, so then I’ll overdo it and I’ll miss it left. It’s a little bit of back and forth that way. So that’s pretty frustrating, especially when I pride myself on driving the ball well.”
McIlroy’s five fairways hit were among the worst in the field during the opening round.
His driving accuracy was well below the field average at the Masters, too, but he was able to overcome it there with tidy wedge play and timely putting. That wasn’t the case on Thursday, when he was often missing on the wrong side of the hole and without an angle to go at the flag. He was also just 1-for-7 in scrambling opportunities.
Earlier in the week, McIlroy said that Aronimink was going to be one-dimensional in terms of strategy off the tee – grab driver and smash it as far as possible because the rough wasn’t overly penal. But after seeing the opening-round setup, he said the situation was more nuanced.
“It’s hit and miss,” he said. “I got a couple of lies today that were particularly bad. There certainly is a penalty for missing the fairway. Probably more than what I anticipated.”
This wasn’t the start that DeChambeau expected either, coming off a third-place finish a week ago at LIV Virginia during which he shot 19 under par.
DeChambeau got up-and-down just once in seven tries, losing a field-worst 3 ½ shots around the greens. After signing his card, he headed straight to the range to blow through three buckets of balls over about 90 minutes. He declined a request to talk after the session.
It’s been a miserable start to the major season for DeChambeau, who missed the cut at the Masters after rounds of 76-74. Now with work to do just to play the weekend here at Aronimink, he hasn’t missed the cut in two majors in a season since 2017.
