Southern Hills has proven to be favorable to frontrunners.
As for McIlroy, he has failed to break par in the opening round 15 times in the
27 majors he has played since winning his last one.
So there was reason for that bounce in his step when he
finished with an 18-foot birdie putt for a 5-under 65, giving him a one-shot
lead at end of a warm and windy day.
He was asked — yes or no — if it was the start he wanted.
“Yes or no? No, I’d rather shoot 74 and try to make the cut
tomorrow,” he said. “Yeah, look, it was a great start. I’ve been carrying some
good form. I think when your game is feeling like that, it’s just a matter of
going out there and really sticking to your game plan, executing as well as you
possibly can, and just sort of staying in your own little world.”
It’s a different world for Tiger Woods, who chose a
different path on a right leg shattered in a car crash 15 months ago and
feeling worse on this day than it did at the Masters last month.
Three bogeys in the middle of his round ruined a good start
for Woods. Two bogeys at the end gave him a 74, his worst start to the PGA
Championship since 2015. And then he limped away for an afternoon of ice baths.
“I just can’t load it,” Woods said of his right leg, injured
in February 2021. “Loading hurts, pressing off it hurts, and walking hurts, and
twisting hurts. It’s just golf. I don’t play that, if I don’t do that, then I’m
all right.”
McIlroy had a one-shot lead over Pebble Beach winner Tom
Hoge and Will Zalatoris, who finished his 66 with a 30-foot birdie, his fourth
putt of 25 feet or longer.
Justin Thomas, trying to shake off a sinus infection and
allergies, made one of only four birdies on the 18th hole for a 67 in the
afternoon, when greens had more foot traffic and scoring was more difficult.
Also a 67 were Matt Kuchar and Abraham Ancer.
The start was just what McIlroy needed as he tries to end
nearly eight years without a major, many of those chances doomed by bad starts.
This was his lowest start to par in a major since a 5-under 66 when he won the
PGA at Valhalla in 2014, the last of his four majors.
In seven previous majors at Southern Hills, the winner had
at least a share of the lead after the first round and every champion was atop
the leaderboard from 36 holes until it over.
That bodes well for McIlroy, and so does his game. He chose
to attack with driver, leaving him wedges to par 4s and and 3-iron into a pair
of par 5s that measure 628 yards and 665 yards.
“I feel like this course, it lets you be pretty aggressive
off the tee if you want to be, so I hit quite a lot of drivers out there and
took advantage of my length and finished that off with some nice iron play and
some nice putting,” he said.
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler had to save par from a
tee shot in the water on 18th hole for a 71, his first time over par in two
months.
“I didn’t shoot myself out of it,” he said.
Jordan Spieth, who joined Woods and McIlroy in a group that
drew a loud and thoroughly entertained crowd, opened with a 72 in his bid to
capture the only major keeping him from the career Grand Slam.
Woods opted for a different strategy than McIlroy and
Spieth, picking his targets off the tee with irons. That didn’t work when some
of those irons didn’t always find the short grass.
“You go out there and hit driver a lot, and if you have a
hot week, you have a hot week and you’re up there,” Woods said. “The game is
just different. It’s much more aggressive now, and I know that. But I was
playing to my spots. If I would have hit the ball solidly on those two holes
and put the ball in the fairway, I would have been fine.”
The difference between McIlroy and Woods was clear early in
the round. On the 461-yard 12th hole, Woods hit iron off the tee that left him
178 yards. McIlroy pounded driver with a slight fade with the prevailing
breeze, leaving him 86 yards. He hit lob wedge to a foot for birdie.
That was the start of four straight birdies for McIlroy,
which included a 6-iron to 25 feet for his longest birdie of the day at the
par-3 14th.
McIlroy made birdie on the two par 5s from greenside
bunkers. He hit another big drive on the tough par-4 second, leaving 7-iron to
about 10 feet.
“Making birdie there is a real bonus,” he said.
The bigger concern was his leg. Woods has said he has good
days and bad, and this didn’t look like a great one. Of equal concern was going
into Friday nine shots behind McIlroy and likely having to fight to make the
cut.
The warmth — not oven heat like the 2007 PGA in August — and
mild wind led to ideal scoring, though Southern Hills still had enough defense.
Twenty-six players from a field of 156 broke par, only nine
of them in the afternoon. McIlroy will have to deal with the late start on
Friday.
“I don’t think a major champion here has ever been double
digits under par, so you know the scores aren’t going to go much further,” Hoge
said. “It’s a grind out here.” -AP