Rory McIlroy found a bit of success early Thursday in the Amgen Irish Open, but lost ground late with back-to-back bogeys.
McIlroy shot 1-under 71 at The K Club in Kildare, Ireland, and was five off the early pace set by Nacho Elvira, Thorbjorn Olesen and Romain Langasque.
“Actually pretty encouraged how I played. Just didn’t score as well as I wanted to,” McIlroy said. “Game feels pretty good. Yeah, as I said, off the tee was good. Was sort of a continuation of what I saw at East Lake a couple weeks ago. Just a matter of being more efficient with the scoring.”
Shane Lowry, playing in the group in front of McIlroy, had a 69. Brooks Koepka, making his tournament debut, matched McIlroy’s 1-under performance.
“It’s a new driver, too, so very, very happy with myself,” said Lowry, who had four birdies and one bogey. “Yeah, honestly I’ve been struggling to find the driver that I love this year, and — yeah, that was good today.”
Thriston Lawrence, who won last week’s Omega European Masters, shot 81.
McIlroy teed off on a drizzly morning in front of a partisan crowd, and gave them reason to cheer with birdies on Nos. 11 and 13, his second and fourth holes of the round. After a bogey at the 15th, he birdied the 16th and 18th holes, both par 5s.
Making the turn in 3 under, on the course where he won his lone Irish Open in 2016, McIlroy traded a bogey at the second, his 11th, for a birdie at the fourth.
He then missed an 8-footer for par at the seventh, went long on the par-3 eighth and couldn’t get up and down, and missed an 11-footer for birdie at the last.
“Ball striking-wise I thought I was pretty good today. Then, yeah, around the greens for the most part I was good,” McIlroy said. “I missed a couple mid-range putts there at the end of the round to save par and that one at the last for birdie, but felt like I hit decent putts and just hitting edges.”
The opening round was suspended for 35 minutes in the afternoon because of dangerous weather, and the final groups were on their last hole when play was called for the day due to darkness.
Catch McIlroy’s second round Friday on Golf Channel beginning at 8 a.m. EDT.
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