Rory McIlroy admits the ‘problem’ he’s been suffering with all year after poor first round at the PGA Championship

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Rory McIlroy had a disastrous opening round at the PGA Championship.

After calling Aronimink a “bomb and gouge” golf course in the week, McIlroy shot an opening round 74 to give himself work to do on Friday just to make the cut.

He couldn’t hit a fairway, and couldn’t buy a putt, leading to four-straight bogeys to finish his round, on the easier front nine too.

After his round, McIlroy gave a brutally honest reflection on how the start to his tournament went.

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Rory McIlroy says he’s been driving poorly all year despite winning The Masters

McIlroy’s round was ticking along just fine, as he sat at even par for most of his first nine holes. But it all unravelled late, and the Masters champion explained why: “I started missing fairways. 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 — you know, I didn’t have great angles either. Then obviously you start missing it just off the edges of these greens, it gets tricky. Yeah, I felt like I did okay. I made that birdie on 5 to get back to even-par after the soft bogey on 4, then I just got on that bogey train at the end.”

He continued, “I’m just not driving the ball well enough. It’s been a problem all year for the most part. Yeah, I’ve sort of got, like 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 like I pride myself on driving the ball well.

“I just need to try to figure it out. I honestly thought I’d figured it out. Coming in here, I hit it well on Sunday at Quail Hollow, and then hit it good at home on Monday. Then even — obviously I had to curtail the practice round Tuesday, but hit it decent yesterday.

“Just sort of, once I get under the gun, it just seems like it starts to go a little bit wayward on me.”

Rory McIlroy says if he was wrong about Aronimink before the PGA Championship

After saying there was very little strategy to Aronimink, and adding that it was a golf course where you smash driver and figure the rest out, the course has proved to be more of a challenge than expected not just for McIlroy, but the entire field.

McIlroy said if he was wrong about Aronimink before the tournament: “It’s hit and miss. I think, if you miss it on the right side going into like — you know, if the pin’s on the left, you miss it right, it’s fine.

“But yeah, I got a couple of lies today that were particularly bad. The one on the 10th hole starting off, that’s as bad as I’ve seen. Yeah, there is a penalty for — certainly is a penalty for missing the fairway. Probably more than what I anticipated after being here, whatever it is, two Fridays ago.”

McIlroy was asked why the players were finding the course so difficult, and he said, “I think it was the wind. I wasn’t expecting it to be as windy today as it was. I think it’s the breezy conditions that are sort of making the scoring what it is. It’s hard to get the ball close.

“Some of the pins are tucked away. You’ve got — say you have a pin tucked over on the left side of the green and the wind’s coming off the left, it’s hard to get it over there. Probably just seeing a lot of guys hit it to 20 and 30 feet. They’re good shots, it’s just hard to make a lot of those putts.”

The only good news for McIlroy is that he now has three days to figure it out and get back to the top of the leaderboard.

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