Chattanooga Times Free Press

McIlroy gets aggressive for early lead at Southern Hills

BY DOUG FERGUSON

TULSA, Okla. — Rory McIlroy was more interested in his own history in the majors than the peculiar heritage at Southern Hills Country Club as the PGA Championship got underway Thursday.

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 his most recent victory in one of the four biggest tournaments on the golf calendar.

So there was reason for that bounce in his step when he finished with an 18-foot birdie putt for a 5-under-par 65, giving him a one-shot lead at the 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 that was shattered in a car crash 15 months ago and was 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 at 67 were Matt Kuchar and Mexico’s Abraham Ancer.

The start was just what McIlroy needed as the 33-yearold from Northern Ireland tries to end nearly eight years without a major victory, 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 2014 PGA Championship in 2014 for the most recent of his four major titles. He won the British Open earlier that year, the 2012 PGA and the 2011 U.S. Open; he was second last month at the Masters, still leaving him a green jacket shy of the career Grand Slam.

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 was over. That bodes well for McIlroy, and so does his game. He chose to attack with his driver, leaving him wedges to par-4 holes and and 3-iron shots 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 the 18th hole for a 71, his first time over par in two months.

“I didn’t shoot myself out of it,” said Scheffler, who was tied for 38th.

Jordan Spieth, who joined McIlroy and Woods in a group that drew a loud and thoroughly entertained crowd, opened with a 72 in his bid to capture the only major keeping the 28-year-old Texan from the career Grand Slam.

Spieth was tied for 56th in a group that included Chattanooga native Keith Mitchell, who overcame a run of five straight bogeys by scattering a trio of birdies. Fellow Baylor School graduate Luke List shot a 74 and was tied for 114th in the 156-player field at the PGA of America’s big event.

The 46-year-old 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,” the 15-time major champion 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.”

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2022-05-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-20T07:00:00.0000000Z

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