{"id":553902,"date":"2026-07-17T05:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553902\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T05:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:44:14","slug":"putting-woes-leave-mcilroy-well-off-open-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553902\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting woes leave McIlroy well off Open pace"},"content":{"rendered":"

A stone-cold putter cost an erratic Rory McIlroy on a frustrating first day at The Open as a two-over round of 72 left him seven off the lead and already facing an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

The Masters champion was unfortunate in that he went out at 3.15pm in what were the most difficult conditions of a day which began somewhat benign with no wind.<\/p>\n

By the time he finished at 8.43pm the greens, baked in the harsh sun all day, were at their crustiest and that may possibly explain why he missed three putts from inside four feet and was 104th in the putting statistics.<\/p>\n

And he was literally brought to his knees at the par-five 17th where, after hooking his approach into the gallery and then flying the green into a bunker, he contorted his stance to splash out to eight feet \u2013 only to miss for a sixth bogey.<\/p>\n

He at least finished on a positive with a brilliant approach from 198 yards to five feet and finally sank a short birdie putt.<\/p>\n

But the distance to unknown American leader Jackson Suber meant his bid for a second Claret Jug and a seventh major \u2013 which would officially make him the most successful European golfer of all time \u2013 was dealt an early blow.<\/p>\n

\"David
\nDavid Howard on the first<\/p>\n

Each of the last 26 Open champions have been within five of the lead after round one.<\/p>\n

The morning starters benefited from a mere whiff coming out of the east but the world number two went out with the breeze stiffening and moving to a more northerly direction off the sea.<\/p>\n

As a result, McIlroy found himself two over after seven having failed to get up and down at the par-three fourth and two-putted from inside four feet at the short but tricky seventh.<\/p>\n

He missed a three-footer at the next \u2013 this time for birdie \u2013 but finally got one to drop after driving the green at the downwind, 415-yard ninth to turn in one over.<\/p>\n

FULL LEADERBOARD<\/a><\/p>\n

Back-to-back bogeys at the start of his back nine halted any momentum as he dropped as low as 155th out of 156 in the putting statistics.<\/p>\n

At the 13th a 24-footer dropped into the side of the hole, encouraged by a sardonic tilt of the head from McIlroy, who was seemingly unimpressed by his second birdie of the day.<\/p>\n

However, he made a complete mess of the two par-fives \u2013 having holed a 12ft birdie at the 206-yard 15th \u2013 but salvaged something late on.<\/p>\n

“There were just too many stupid mistakes \u2013 but every time I made a stupid mistake, thankfully I made a birdie to sort of keep myself in it.<\/p>\n

“I’m not too far away. If you look at the discrepancy between the scoring this morning and the scoring this afternoon, it looks like that\u2019s going to be flipped tomorrow with the conditions again.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully I can take advantage of the more benign conditions in the morning and shoot one under par and get back in it.”<\/p>\n

\"SOUTHPORT,
\nShane Lowry was the best performing Irish player on Day 1<\/p>\n

Shane Lowry had to deal with the same conditions as McIlroy having started 22 minutes before him, but he posted a promising round of 69 to sit four strokes off the lead.<\/p>\n

Lowry had a lot of birdie chances early on, but didn’t take full advantage as he was out in 33. Birdies on the third and nine holes were offset by a dropped stroke at the sixth.<\/p>\n

The 2019 champion climbed to two under par after sinking a lengthy birdie on the par-3 12th but things threatened to derail after that.<\/p>\n

A run of three bogeys in a row from the 13th and 15th – which included a four-putt at the par-5 14th – looked like it would spoil his Thursday. Visibly frustrated at this point, Lowry managed to rally with successive birdies at the 16th and 17th bringing him back to one under par, just outside the top 20.<\/p>\n

Tom McKibbin was the earliest of the seven Irish starters and a card containing three bogeys and two birdies left him on one-over par.<\/p>\n

\"SOUTHPORT,
\nJackson Suber is the surprise Round 1 leader<\/p>\n

Darren Clarke held firm with seven closing pars to finish three-over par while amateur David Howard, who booked his spot at an amateur qualifier last week, was a shot further back.<\/p>\n

Fellow amateur Stuart Grehan had a tough seven-over par 77 while it was a disastrous day for recently-minted US Senior Open champion Padr\u00e1ig Harrington.<\/p>\n

The Dubliner started with a double-bogey and a round of 80 left him on 10-over par and last in the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A stone-cold putter cost an erratic Rory McIlroy on a frustrating first day at The Open as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-553902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}