Following a five-hour range session Monday to kick off 2024 Players Championship week, Rory McIlroy believed he’d straightened out some of what plagued him at the four PGA Tour events leading into the tournament. If the early evidence is any indication, he’s correct.
McIlroy shot an opening-round 65 on Thursday — scoring a Players record-tying 10 birdies while doing so — to co-lead at TPC Sawgrass alongside Xander Schauffele as the duo entered the clubhouse in the early afternoon.
For a while, it appeared as if McIlroy may go even lower. He was 6 under through eight holes on the back nine before hitting a ball in the water on the 18th. McIlroy was able to salvage a bogey and went on another birdie run across the front nine. Then came the controversial seventh hole, Rory’s 16th of the day.
The No. 2 player in the world pulled another drive (his one issue Thursday) into the water, which led to a lengthy exchange between playing partners Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland about where the ball bounced, crossed and ultimately ended up.
Despite some apparent disagreement, McIlroy dropped where he originally presumed was the proper spot to drop and went on to make a double bogey. He said he felt comfortable with his decision and remained convinced that he saw the ball bounce above the red line.
“Jordan was just trying to make sure that I was doing the right thing,” McIlroy said after the round. “I was pretty sure that my ball had crossed where I was sort of dropping it. It’s so hard, right, because there was no TV evidence. I was adamant. But, again, he was just trying to make sure that I was going to do the right thing. If anything, I was being conservative with it.
“At the end of the day, we’re all trying to protect ourselves, protect the field, as well. I wouldn’t say [the conversation] was needless. He was just trying to make sure that what happened was the right thing.”
When pressed about the drop he took on the 18th, McIlroy said much of the same.
“[It] was a pretty similar situation,” he said. “Again, adamant it crossed, it’s just a matter of where it crosses. This golf course, more than any other, it sort of produces those situations a little bit. Again, like I feel like I’m one of the most conscientious golfers out here, so if I feel like I’ve done something wrong, it’ll play on my conscience for the rest of the tournament. I’m a big believer in karma, and if you do something wrong, I feel like it’s going to come around and bite you at some point.”
Following the exchange and the double bogey on the 7th, McIlroy closed out his round with a par at the 8th and yet another birdie on the par-5 9th, which meant he birdied all four par 5s on the golf course Thursday.
It was an “only in golf” kind of day.
McIlroy, in the midst of one of the great driving stretches of his career, lost strokes off the tee. He said Wednesday that his feel with woods (including driver) is “amazing” right now, and the numbers back him up. He’s No. 1 on the PGA Tour in strokes gained off the tee so far this season. So, of course he struggled with some swings but was first in the field on approach play, a fact of the game he’s battled for much of the PGA Tour season, ranking 152nd on Tour.
“I’m not sure how the strokes gained approach stats look like, but it’s probably been one of my best days in a while, which is really nice,” he said. “Yeah, the feeling is good with the irons, and the feeling with the driver and the 3-wood is just a little bit different. But as long as I remind myself on the tee box that, OK, this is a wood, and I get on the fairway, and this is an iron, and I’ve got two different feels and two different thoughts, then it’s OK.”
McIlroy said a poor performance last Sunday at Bay Hill — where he shot 76 after playing his way into contention at the Arnold Palmer Invitational — may have inadvertently led to some success, at least so far this week.
“Just I needed to clean up the technique a little bit, needed to clean up some things,” he said. “Honestly, just needed to put the time in. I’ve wanted to play a lot to start this year, and I have, but when you play a lot, you don’t maybe get the time to practice all that much.
“At the same time, say I had a decent day on Sunday at Bay Hill and shot 70, for sure I would have taken Monday off here. But because of not shooting a decent score, I grinded on the range and figured something out and put the time in, and it’s sort of already reaping benefits, so that’s nice.”
In 2019, in McIlroy’s lone win at the Players Championship, he opened with 67 and trailed the leaders by two. His 10 birdies tied the record, previously set by Taylor Moore (2023), Tom Hoge (2023), Patton Kizzire (2022), Cameron Smith (2022), Colt Knost (2016) and Justin Thomas (2015).