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.
“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 and was last among the early wave.
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.”
Round 1 coverage resumes on Golf Channel at 11 a.m. EDT.
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