The good times kept rolling for members of the European Ryder Cup team Thursday at Delhi Golf Club with the man who holed the most crucial putt at Bethpage Black holding the solo lead after 18 holes of play. Shane Lowry fired a blemish-free 64 in the opening round of the 2025 India Championship to sit at 8 under for the tournament and one stroke clear of Keita Nakajima of Japan.
“You know, 64 is a really nice score,” Lowry said. “It’s not that hard when you are out there but when you start missing fairways it becomes quite tricky. When I saw the draw, I was really happy. Being with the lads, we’ve had some good things happen the last few weeks. I haven’t played with Luke [Donald] that much in tournaments but obviously I know him pretty well and we all fed off each other and it was nice.”
Lowry played the opening refrain with good friend Tommy Fleetwood, who signed for a 68 that included a hole-out eagle on the par-5 14th, as well as European skipper Luke Donald, who matched Fleetwood’s 68 to occupy a spot inside the top 10. Comfortable groupings were a theme throughout the tee sheet on the par 72 with world No. 2 Rory McIlroy playing alongside Ben Griffin and Viktor Hovland.
The American topped the three-ball with a 68 of his own highlighted by a fast finish on the outward side of Delhi GC. The two-time winner on the PGA Tour this season was 1 under before catching fire in his final six holes, playing them in 4 under to surge up the leaderboard.
“It’s a challenging course. You need to be in the fairway,” Griffin said. “If you’re in the rough you’ve got to make sure you have a good angle into the pins. I felt like I did a pretty good job of keeping it in the fairway most of the day. I was in the rough a couple times, but a couple of those holes were par 5s where I was laying up and it all worked out. I was able to post a good number and hopefully can keep the pedal down the rest of the week.”
Hovland never found his stride in the scoring department as he carded just two birdies against one bogey. He played his first nine holes in even par as he strung together nine straight pars to open up his tournament. Meanwhile, the tournament headliner, McIlroy, made more headlines when he chose to keep his driver in the locker room and out of the bag given the narrow, tight fairways Delhi GC is known for.
“Dog was out of the bag, probably asleep in the locker,” McIlroy said. “Yeah… I was sort of thinking about it last night before I went to bed. Well, sometimes if you’re really conservative off a par 5 today, you might have like a 5-wood into the green, but I’m never going to hit driver, so I just thought I’ve got to 2-iron, 3-iron, 4-iron all the way through, and then I’ve got a 5-wood just in case I need to hit it for an approach shot on a par 5. But I just don’t see any hole out there that I hit to hit it more than say 260, 270 off the tee.”
McIlroy got off to a precarious start as an opening birdie was quickly offset by bogeys on Nos. 11 and 12 — his second and third holes of his round. The Northern Irishman started to bounce around the turn as he made his way to the other side of the golf course at 1 under with birdies on both of the par 5s on his first nine.
The circles kept on getting penciled onto his scorecard as he rolled in a long distance connection on the par-3 7th to get as deep as 4 under for his round. At the time, only two names topped McIlroy’s on the leaderboard, but the grand slam winner would not get out of his initial 18 holes without one last run in with adversity. His tee shot drifted off line and into the brush on the par-5 8th leading to a bogey and an opening 69.
“I think it’s similar strategy to what I did today, especially off the tee,” McIlroy said. “You just have to get the ball in the fairway. The rough is unpredictable. You get a lot of fliers like I did the last two there. Yeah, maybe being a little bit less aggressive with approach shots and getting it on the right side of the pin.”
In addition to Fleetwood, Griffin and Donald, Americans Brian Harman and Michael Kim both enjoyed strong performances in Round 1 and signed for 68s. The two efforts came with unorthodox lead ups to the competition as Harman has his manager, Jeremy Elliott, carrying his bag while Kim came into the tournament blind after posting on social media earlier in the week that he was stuck in Japan due to some visa issues.