In a complete role reversal to last week, Rory McIlroy shares the lead at the BMW Championship as Scottie Scheffler languishes near the bottom of the leaderboard at Bellerive.
McIlroy demanded an improvement in performance and he got just that as he fired a bogey-free 64 that included four birdies in his last six holes to share the lead with Wyndham Clark, Gary Woodland, JJ Spaun and Chris Gotterup on six under.
“I went home and I worked on a few things and at least got myself back in a frame of mind where like I felt like I’m at least back on the right path of what I’m doing with my game and with my swing. It’s certainly a work in progress.
“Days like this are encouraging, obviously. There’s still a lot of work to be done. But for, you know, first round with what I’m trying to do, middle rehearsal on the takeaway, all that sort of stuff, it went as well as it could have today, for sure.”
McIlroy finished third last at the first FedEx Cup Playoff event and admitted that he wasn’t at the races at all with where his swing was at. Despite looking back to his old self as the scorecard suggests, he feels there is still room for improvement.
“I would say still a lot of golf swing, but at least I feel like with this rehearsal that I’m doing I can then get into feeling what shot I’m trying to hit and at least give myself the opportunity to see a shot or to feel what I’m trying to do. So, still thinking about the swing a lot, but at the same time just trying to blend the two together, so at least I’m seeing shots and being a little bit more visual than I was last week.”
McIlroy and co hold a one shot lead over Roy Hisatsune and Matt Fitzpatrick while PGA Tour Player of the Year elect Scheffler is fourth from bottom on two over after a dismal 72.
The world number one and FedEx Cup leader was four over through seven but managed to chisel away at his score and is eight shots off the pace.
There is a hole in one prize on the par-3 16th where the successful player walks away with a green BMW x5, a make, model and colour that McIlroy chose as the reward, although he has never claimed a prize for any of his aces during his career.
“I think there’s an initiative this week where, if you get a hole-in-one, you sort of had the choice between two cars and maybe three different colors of each car. So it wasn’t, I mean, I picked the car and I picked the color. And I probably won’t get it because it’s a green X5. Might get it. Who knows.”
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