ST. LOUIS — In case anybody needed a reminder of golf’s fickleness, Thursday’s opening round at Bellerive provided another sterling example just how quickly things can change.
Four days removed from a dominant trek to winner’s circle at TPC Southwind, Scottie Scheffler carded a 2-over 72 to wind up T-44 ahead of just three other players on the BMW Championship leaderboard.
It was far from Scheffler’s sharpest outing of the year — one that saw the pre-tournament favorite bogey four times on his front nine on the way to a 38.
On the other side of that sluggish start was Rory McIlroy, who opened with a 74 on Thursday last week before finishing 66th in the same tournament that Scheffler won in Memphis. A few days later in a different city, McIlroy put together a bogey-free 64 to take a share of the lead with four others.
“The golf course is my style of golf course — I do well on these golf courses,” McIlroy said. “They’re big, they’re long. You can get away with missing some tee shots at times. Definitely a course that sets up better for me than the one we played last week.”
McIlroy finished T-50 in his previous start at Bellerive, the 2018 PGA Championship which Brooks Koepka went on to win over Tiger Woods.
He noted that greens Thursday were still quite soft from rain earlier in the week.
“But there’s a little bit of run in the fairways — the balls running out a little bit off the tee,” McIlroy said. “Doesn’t, it looks like the forecast has improved over the last couple days, so hopefully by the time we get to the weekend the greens have dried out a little bit and there’s a little more bounce to them.”
When pressed for what the key difference was from week to week, McIlroy said course ft and weather.
Temperatures in Memphis hit triple digits while the Tour stopped there last week to play its first of three FedExCup playoff events.
“I didn’t grow up in that. I live in Florida now, but it’s still pretty hot and pretty humid,” McIlroy explained, “but it’s nowhere near what it was last week in Memphis. I like this a lot more.”
‘Triple in a heartbeat’
Chris Gotterup is one of the four tied with McIlroy at 6 under after Round 1, and credited the lack of separation on the leaderboard to the course’s length and its current playing conditions.
He went bogey-free Thursday, including a stretch where he carded three consecutive birdies on his back nine.
“It’s a good golf course that’s not overly penalizing — you can get it around and make some birdies here, but you can also make a couple easy bogeys,” he explained. “You’re not going to make too many double bogeys out here, where, last week, you could make a triple in a heartbeat. But I don’t think that’s really the case out here.”
Gotterup said he didn’t see anyone in the field carding a 60 this week in the Show-Me State.
“I could be wrong,” he said. “Someone’s probably going to do it tomorrow now.”
As for the Player of the Year chase that McIlroy declared over during his press conference Wednesday (saying it was Scheffler’s award), Gotterup said he hadn’t given it much thought despite being a three-time winner in 2026 — and didn’t see how a possible win fourth trip to the winner’s circle would change how he felt.
“If it works out, it works out. If not, I’ve had a pretty good year regardless,” he said. “Just trying to play well this week and see what happens.”
