Rory McIlroy was more like his old self, the club twirl, the club drop. The eyes squinting and, then, the power walk. The Masters champion – so out-of-sorts since scaling the heights with his green jacket win back in April to seal the career Grand Slam – walked the walk in the opening round of the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands with a bogey-free 64, to jump right into contention.
American Austin Eckroat claimed the clubhouse lead with a superbly crafted 62, but McIlroy – the galleries drawn to him like a magnet to iron having missed the past two years of the tournament in Cromwell, Connecticut – lived up to his star appeal with an impressive round, which will finish his competitive outings stateside until after next month’s 153rd Open at Royal Portrush.
McIlroy is headed to Europe next week – getting the keys to his new mansion in Wentworth, taking in Wimbledon and then moving on to competing in the Scottish Open and, then, the big one at Portrush. And he continued the momentum of that final round of the US Open which had pushed him into a top-20 finish at Oakmont.
On the more birdie-friendly course at TPC River Highlands, McIlroy – playing alongside US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley – claimed six birdies without dropping a shot.
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“This is a nice tonic compared to last week [at Oakmont] in terms of it’s a slightly more benign golf course and the penalty for missing isn’t quite as severe. You can give yourself plenty of chances for birdies, which Keegan and I did. Overall it was a good start to the tournament, and I think when you’re in a two-ball like that and we can sort of feed off one another a little bit, too, that’s nice, as well,” said McIlroy.
“I just want to see some good golf and see some better shots. I think if you concentrate on that and you’re concentrating on your quality of golf and concentrating on just trying to play to the best of your ability, the result will take care of itself.
“There’s no point in thinking about the result right now. I’m just trying to play as good as I can and make good swings, and if I do that enough, more than likely I’ll find myself in a position to have a chance to win.”
In the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Frisco in Texas, Leona Maguire made a very solid start to the third Major of the season with a level-par 72, a round which featured two birdies and two bogeys on the tough Gil Hanse-codesigned course. Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul claimed the early clubhouse lead with a 68, while world number one Nelly Korda opened with a 72.
On the hotelplanner Tour (formerly the Challenge Tour), Royal Dublin’s Max Kennedy shot a magnificent course record 60, 10 under par, to assume the first-round lead in the Blot Play9 tournament in Pleneuf, France, to take a four-shots lead over England’s James Morrison.
Kennedy, a 23-year-old Dubliner and alumni of the University of Louisville, featured two eagles in a blemish-free round.
In the Amateur Championship at Royal St George’s in Kent, Co Louth’s Gavin Tiernan – the only Irish player remaining in the championship – impressively claimed a 3 and 2 win over Frenchman Gaspar Glaudas to move into the quarter-final of the matchplay, where he will face Estonia’s Richard Teder.
