Rory McIlroy walked off Royal Birkdale on Thursday seven shots behind surprise leader Jackson Suber after a first-round 72 that included four birdies and six bogeys. The round left the world's top golfer well outside the margin that has defined Open Championship history. Each of the past 26 Open champions has been within five shots of the lead after round one.
According to a report by Yahoo Sports, McIlroy struggled most on the greens, where inconsistent surfaces made it difficult for him to commit to his reads. He missed three four-foot putts in the span of four holes beginning at the seventh, a stretch that proved costly.
"I feel like I missed a couple early on that looked like they were going to break one way and they actually went another way, and then when you get the next one, you're over it and it's just very hard to trust that the ball is going to do what you think it's going to do," McIlroy said. "Then you maybe don't make quite as committed of a stroke. It seems like when it gets like that you just keep leaving yourself four-footers."
The 2014 Open champion was blunt in his assessment of the day. "[I] sort of felt like I got it going a little bit, but just too many stupid mistakes. But every time I made a stupid mistake, thankfully I made a birdie to sort of keep myself in it," he said.
McIlroy identified the par-fives as a particular sore spot, noting that bogeys on those holes should not happen. "The two bogeys on the par-fives weren't great and I struggled the first two holes to get the speed of the greens," he said. He did drive the green on the 415-yard ninth hole, a bright spot in an otherwise ragged day.
The greens themselves drew sharp criticism. "I felt like they were very inconsistent, just because some parts of the greens are still alive and growing and other parts are really dead," McIlroy said. He believes morning conditions on Friday will be more forgiving, and he is scheduled to tee off at 10:09 BST.
"If you look at the discrepancy between the scoring this morning and the scoring this afternoon, it looks like that's going to be flipped tomorrow with the conditions," he said. "Hopefully I can take advantage of the more benign conditions in the morning and shoot under par and get back in it."
The deficit is steep but not without precedent for McIlroy. He recovered from a seven-shot first-round deficit to win the 2025 Masters earlier this year, his second Masters title. He is now chasing a second Claret Jug to go alongside the one he won in 2014. He finished joint fourth at the last Open held at Birkdale in 2017. McIlroy tees off Friday morning with seven shots to make up and the tougher afternoon draw behind him.
