Rory McIlroy admitted that his game was a little rusty after a short break, but he was happy with his long game after carding a four-under 66 on day one of the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club.
“I think it worked out fine,” he said of his intended strategy of hitting driver whenever possible. “I drove the ball pretty well. I missed it in a couple of spots but was sort of able to get away with it. The mistakes I made mostly were from around the greens, the three-putt on 12 and then making 6 at 15.
“Apart from that, I played pretty good. I felt like I was a little rusty out there, just hadn’t played in a week and I hadn’t really done a ton of practice, especially like on and around the greens.
“I certainly can tidy a few things up, but overall a decent day.”
The world number two led the field in Strokes Gained: Off The Tee and ranked 10th in putting, but lacked a little sharpness with his approach play and short game, ranking in the 60s in both of these metrics.
Birdies on the second, fifth and sixth holes got him to the turn at -3, and he drained a 14-footer on the 10th to get to -4 for the first time, but then the rust began to show as he misjudged his approach to 11 and left himself a tricky downhill 40-footer that he three-putted for his first bogey of the day.
An 18-footer on the short par-3 14th found the bottom of the cup to get him back to -4, but followed with an uncharacteristic par-5 bogey on the next. He made his way back to four-under for the third and final time with a birdie on 17, and he’s not overly concerned with the low scoring recorded on the opening day.
“You can’t really pay attention to that,” he said. “We’ll see what the weather is like tomorrow and see what that brings.
“But yeah, at this point you sort of know that — I feel like I’ve played enough golf tournaments to know roughly what the winning score might be. So you sort of try to — obviously Keith got the 9-under today, but you try to put that out of your head and plug along and stay in your own little world.”
It’s McIlroy’s first individual appearance since completing the Career Grand Slam at Augusta National, and he received warm support from the locals, but he admits that it’s the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in a week’s time that is his primary focus.
“Look, to me, this is — I don’t want to diminish this tournament and this championship, but to me, with everything that’s happened over the past couple of weeks, this was always going to be a great prep week for me to see where my game was and sort of refine a few things,” he said.
“I still want to play well, and I still want to have a chance to win the tournament, but I’ll have a really — a much better gauge of where my game is going into next week after these four days than I would have had if I hadn’t had played or if I just spent the week at home practicing. So it’s an important week for me.”
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