This is what the US Open does. It forces you to bear your soul, and to rely on inner resolve. The display of petulance, smashing his wedge into the sand – not once, but twice – at one point of his round, brought us a raw human trait; of wanting something so badly.
That it was Rory McIlroy who allowed the mask to slip, articulating such emotions with actions rather than words, only proved how much this 122nd edition of the championship at The Country Club in Brookline means. When all was said and done, an opening round of 67, three under, which was flawless until a finishing bogey, put the Northern Irishman into contention from the off. All in all, it was an impressive round.
McIlroy, riding in on the back of a successful defence at the Canadian Open, was a man on a mission. And his opening round showed his intent. It wasn’t just about the birdies – four of them in total – but as much about the par saves, the ability to strategically plot a route around the course and, on more than one occasion, to get himself out of trouble.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in his actions on the fifth hole, his 14th of the day. The drivable par-four of 375 yards is among the easier of the holes encountered, but McIlroy – going with a three-wood – saw his tee shot finish in ugly rough overhanging a bunker. He struggled to find a stance in quick sands that moved and swallowed his Nike shoes, eventually only managing to advance the ball from the grass into a bunker 20 yards in front. His reaction was to hammer his sand wedge into the contrary sand.
“You’re going to encounter things at a US Open, whether they be lies or stuff like that, that you just don’t really encounter any other week. It’s hard not to get frustrated. The thickest rough on the course is around the edges of the bunkers.
“So I was sort of cursing the USGA whenever I was going up to the ball, and then yeah, but it’s one of those things it happens here, it doesn’t really happen anywhere else. You just have to accept it. I gave the sand a couple of whacks because I’d already messed it up, so it wasn’t like it was much more work for Harry [Diamond],” said McIlroy of the lie and his reaction.
What followed, though, summed up Mcilroy’s intent and focus. He splashed out of the bunker to 13 feet and rolled in the par-saving putt. He then followed up with birdies on the sixth and the par-five seventh to move into the outright lead on four under, only to drop his only shot of the round on the ninth – where a poor approach pushed into greenside rough led to a gentle throw of the offending club in front of him – and, finally, he proved fallible in failing to get up and down to save par.
Indeed, a number of par saves proved as rewarding to McIlroy as any of the four birdies he managed. It showed a steel, a resolve.
“I think one of the things over the years that I maybe haven’t done as well at US Opens is when I’ve put myself in those sort of positions, like in that long rough on two. Or where I found myself on five, trying to be a little too heroic with the first shot and leaving it in there, or just sort of completely getting it wrong, and then all of a sudden you’re scrambling to make a double,” said McIlroy, who successfully kept any high numbers of his card.
Where poor first rounds had proven to be his Achilles heel in recent years, this is the second successive Major – following on from last month’s US PGA – that he hit the ground running with a strong opening round.
“You feel like you’re right in the tournament from the start of the week, which is nice,” said McIlroy of jumping out of the gates fast: “I’m going into tomorrow with the mindset of ‘let’s keep it going’, rather than ‘where is the cut line’ or whatever; if you don’t get off to a great start those thoughts start to creep in, ‘okay, what do I need to just be here for the weekend?’ It’s certainly a different mindset when you get off to a good start, and I’ve just got to keep it going.”
And, without having to delve too deeply under the skin, McIlroy provided a very simple answer into why he wants so badly to get back to winning ways in the Majors, not having won since his US PGA success in 2014.
“It’s been eight years since I won a Major, and I just want to get my hands on one again!” he said. Simple, and straight to the point.
First round scores
USA unless stated, par 70, (a) denotes amateurs
66 Adam Hadwin (Can)
67 Rory McIlroy (N Irl), M. J. Daffue (Rsa), Joel Dahmen, David Lingmerth (Swe), Callum Tarren (Eng)
68 Matthew NeSmith, Matthew Fitzpatrick (Eng), Justin Rose (Eng), Hayden Buckley, Dustin Johnson, Brian Harman, Aaron Wise
69 Will Zalatoris, Patrick Rodgers, Nick Hardy, Max Homa, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm (Esp), Jason Kokrak, James Piot, Gary Woodland, Collin Morikawa, Beau Hossler, Adam Scott (Aus)
70 Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark, Webb Simpson, Viktor Hovland (Nor), (a) Travis Vick, Shaun Norris (Rsa), Scottie Scheffler, (a) Sam Bennett, Richard Bland (Eng), Patrick Reed, Marc Leishman (Aus), Keegan Bradley, Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn), Guillermo Mito Pereira (Chi), Daniel Berger, Adam Schenk
71 Wil Besseling (Ned), Todd Sinnott (Aus), Sebastian Soederberg (Swe), Séamus Power (Irl), Samuel Stevens, Sam Burns, Matt McCarty, Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Kor), Joseph Bramlett, Joaquin Niemann (Chi), Erik Barnes, Corey Conners (Can), Cameron Tringale, Bryson DeChambeau, Brandon Matthews
72 Tyrrell Hatton (Eng), Tommy Fleetwood (Eng), Thomas Pieters (Bel), Taylor Montgomery, Sung Jae Im (Kor), Shane Lowry (Irl), Patrick Cantlay, Mackenzie Hughes (Can), Luke List, Lanto Griffin, Jordan Spieth, Joo-Hyung Kim (Kor), Harold Varner III, Guido Migliozzi (Ita), Davis Riley, Cameron Young, Cameron Smith (Aus), Bo Hoag, Benjamin Silverman (Can), (a) Austin Greaser, Andrew Putnam, (a) Adrien Dumont (Bel)
73 Victor Perez (Fra), Tony Finau, Tom Hoge, (a) Stewart Hagestad, Stewart Cink, Sam Horsfield (Eng), Nick Taylor (Can), Min-Woo Lee (Aus), Kevin Kisner, Kevin Chappell, (a) Keita Nakajima (Jpn), Harris English, Francesco Molinari (Ita), Denny McCarthy, Daijiro Izumida (Jpn), Chris Naegel, Chris Gotterup, Chan Kim, Brooks Koepka, Brian Stuard, Billy Horschel, Andrew Novak, Alexander Noren (Swe)
74 Tomoyasu Sugiyama (Jpn), Talor Gooch, Sergio Garcia (Esp), Sebastian Munoz (Col), Scott Stallings, Satoshi Kodaira (Jpn), Ryan Gerard, Ryan Fox (Nzl), Patton Kizzire, Lucas Herbert (Aus), Kurt Kitayama, Jim Furyk, Harry Hall (Eng), Davis Shore, Chase Seiffert
75 (a) William Mouw, Troy Merritt, Thorbjoern Olesen (Den), (a) Maxwell Moldovan, (a) Laird Shepherd (Eng), Kevin Na, Jonas Blixt (Swe), Grayson Murray
76 Si Woo Kim (Kor), Russell Henley, Roger Sloan (Can), Luke Gannon, Jinichiro Kozuma (Jpn), Fran Quinn, Danny Lee (Nzl), (a) Charles Reiter, Branden Grace (Rsa), Brady Calkins, Adria Arnaus (Esp)
77 Yannik Paul (Ger), Sepp Straka (Aut), Rikuya Hoshino (Jpn), Richard Mansell (Eng), (a) Michael Thorbjornsen, Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa), Kalle Samooja (Fin), (a) Ben Lorenz
78 Sean Jacklin (Sco), Phil Mickelson, (a) Nick Dunlap, Marcel Schneider (Ger), Erik van Rooyen (Rsa), Andrew Beckler
79 Isaiah Salinda, (a) Fred Biondi (Bra)
80 Jesse Mueller
82 Jediah Morgan (Aus)
83 Sean Crocker, Keith Greene, (a) Caleb Manuel
