NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — When Rory McIlroy met with the media before the 2026 PGA Championship began, he remarked that “strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent” at Aronimink Golf Club. After shooting a 74 on Thursday in a first-round performance that McIlroy succinctly described as “shit,” the six-time major winner was left to eat his words.
McIlroy put forth a shockingly poor effort with his driver, losing half a stroke to the field off the tee.
It’s not the first time that he has struggled this year off the tee this year, though it has rarely affected him to this degree. McIlroy scrapped his way around Augusta National with some incredible scrambling and putting on his way to a second green jacket.
That proved he’s a different player than he was years ago, when the driver was his ultimate weapon; however, his first round at Aronimink was a reminder that the Ulsterman will not always get away with poor driving.
The punishment he faced for those wayward drives was apparent from the start, when McIlroy missed the fairway by inches on the 10th (his first hole) and could only hack his second shot 104 yards down the fairway on his way to an opening bogey.
“It’s hit and miss. … I got a couple of lies today that were particularly bad,” McIlroy said. “The one on the 10th hole starting off, that’s as bad as I’ve seen. There certainly is a penalty for missing the fairway. Probably more than what I anticipated after being here two Fridays ago.”
McIlroy bounced back with a birdie on No. 11 and was able to hold his round together and stay in the mix through his first 14 holes, arriving at the 6th (his 15th hole of the day) at even par for his round despite his struggles off the tee. However, everything unraveled from there for McIlroy, who closed his round with four consecutive bogeys — five in his last six holes — to post 4 over and sit outside the top 100 when his round ended.
“I started missing fairways,” McIlroy explained. “I missed the fairway right on 4, the fairway right on 6, the fairway right on 7, fairway right on 9. From there, it’s hard — I didn’t have great angles either. Then, obviously, you start missing it just off the edges of these greens; it gets tricky. I felt like I did OK. I made that birdie on 5 to get back to even-par after the soft bogey on [No.] 4, then I just got on that bogey train at the end.”
McIlroy’s driver has long been his greatest weapon, as his combination of distance and accuracy has consistently made him the consensus best driver of the ball on the PGA Tour. However, this year, he’s found himself oddly uncomfortable with a driver in his hands, noting he’s struggled with a two-way miss that sounds familiar to most weekend golfers.
“I’m just not driving the ball well enough. It’s been a problem all year for the most part,” McIlroy explained. “… I miss it right, and then I want to try to correct it. And 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 inability to straighten things out is a particularly big problem this week, as the rough is playing more penal than expected. Some of that is the wind, which is blowing harder than originally forecast early in the week, making it harder to pick distances. The overnight quarter-inch of rain also made the thick rough even stickier, as McIlroy found out the hard way on the 10th. And then there were some challenging pins on Thursday as the PGA presented an exacting test to open play and give players plenty to think about.
All of it has added up to a more challenging course than McIlroy — and, in his defense, many others, including those of us in the media — anticipated coming into this week. The bomb-and-gouge approach will not suffice this week, given what has happened in the first round. Accuracy will matter off the tee, as coming out of the fairway is a must to keep the ball on the correct section of Donald Ross’ undulating greens.
Whether that means McIlroy will need to employ a bit more of a strategic approach off the tee remains to be seen, but he must at least find a fix for his two-way miss and start finding fairways if he’s going to make the weekend, much less a run at a third PGA title.