A frustrated Rory McIlroy left himself facing an uphill struggle to win the Masters and complete the career grand slam following an opening 73 at Augusta National.
McIlroy was two over par for the day after bogeys on the 10th and 11th but rallied superbly to birdie the 13th, 15th and 16th, only to drop shots on the last two holes.
The last 13 Masters champions were all inside the top 10 after the opening round and McIlroy found himself outside the top 40 at the time of signing his card.
“I felt the course was there,” McIlroy said. “It’s soft. There’s not much wind. I made five birdies, that wasn’t the problem. I just made too many mistakes. And I’m making mistakes from pretty simple positions, just off the side of the green, 17 and 18 being prime examples of that.
“I’m going to go to the putting green right now and try to figure this out, just sort of reads more than anything else. I over-read a few early on, and then I started to under-read them coming in.
“I think just whenever the greens are a little slower, they don’t break as much. The greens are maybe two or three feet slower than they usually are, just because it’s been so soft and the rain. They will get faster as the week goes on, so it’s just a matter of adjusting.”
McIlroy’s 73 was his worst opening round since a 74 in 2010 and the Northern Irishman added: “You know you’re going to have chances. There’s birdie opportunities.
“I can accept mistakes if I’m trying and it’s not a mental error, but six bogeys out there is a little too many and I’m just going to need to tidy that up over the next few days.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here