Southampton (United States) (AFP) – Rory McIlroy was happy to see the US Golf Association slow the greens in Thursday’s first round of the US Open with brutal winds testing top golfers at Shinnecock. After talk of losing the course in 2004 and 2018 when the US Open was played at Shinnecock with gusting winds and lightning-fast greens, the USGA slowed the speed of the putting surfaces from where they were earlier this week.
“Greens are pretty slow and quite receptive. I think they need to be at this point,” McIlroy said. “It’s a challenging golf course already, and you put 30-mph winds on top of it, it tests the best players in the world pretty well. They were prudent with the course setup. You just want to get everyone around without too much issue. They’ve set the course up for that, at least today.”
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McIlroy could not take full advantage, however, firing a one-under par 69 and twice squandering the lead, first with bogeys at the 13th and par-five 16th holes, then by closing with back-to-back bogeys at the eighth and ninth after making an 11-foot eagle putt at the par-five fifth. “With the conditions today, anything under par or around even par is a good score,” McIlroy said. “It was a day to really just keep yourself in the tournament and not shoot yourself out of it, which is exactly what I did eight years ago here.”
At the 2018 US Open, McIlroy opened with an 80, matching his worst major round score to par at 10-over. “The big thing I needed to change was my mindset,” McIlroy said. “It hasn’t looked as if I’ve done a rebuild of my game, but it has felt like it in terms of the way I approach the game and the value I place on certain shots and certain skills within the game.”
McIlroy was more cautious and it helped, noting that when he was off target, “I missed it in pretty much all the right spots.” “Really just minimizing the mistakes. I did that for the most part,” he said. “It’s so tough. It’s so difficult. I didn’t feel like I hit two bad iron shots on the last two holes and put myself in pretty difficult spots and wasn’t able to get it up-and-down, but overall a really good day.”
McIlroy kept a wedge in his hands much of the day. “Laying back in this championship is always the smart choice,” McIlroy said. “The penalty for the miss is so severe around these greens that if you can just leave yourself a wedge in your hand you’re never really going to make worse than a par, you hope, and that’s never a bad score in this tournament.”
His eagle putt at five came after a 396-yard drive that left him a pitching wedge shot from 194 yards. “Was nice to hit wedge in there and then to pay it off with a putt and to make a three was a bonus,” McIlroy said. “My par-five play of recent hasn’t been the best, so it was nice to see that drop.”
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