Patient Rory McIlroy off to 'great start' in new Masters mission

Squeezing everything he could get out of it, the Northern Irishman opened his title defence with a five-under-par 67 to share the lead with American Sam Burns. He was the sixth defending champion to sign for that score or better in the first round in this event. If he’d managed to convert a good birdie chance at the 17th, McIlroy would have matched the 66s shot by Jose Maria Olazabal and Jordan Spieth in 1995 and 2016 respectively. He wasn’t too bothered about that, though.

“Great start to the week obviously,” admitted McIlroy, who, in a nice touch, was greeted by record six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus on the range before heading out. “Honestly, I couldn’t have got a lot more out of my round today. I feel like I leaned heavily on my experience out there to do that.”

It wasn’t pretty for the five-time major winner over the first seven holes. In fact, it wasn’t until the ninth hole that he found a fairway. His recovery play, though, was exceptional. Helped by back-to-back birdies at the eight and ninth, he headed to the back nine with a spring in his step. That became a bounce when he reeled off three birdies in a row from the 13th. On both the 13th and 15th, he had to take his punishment due to either being in trees or blocked out by trees. Gains were made at all four par 5s, which is crucial here.

“It started pretty scrappy,” he added. “I was hitting out of the trees a little bit the first seven holes and then started to string some good swings together from the eighth hole onwards. Played those last 11 in five-under.

“Yeah, I settled into the round nicely even when I wasn't hitting fairways. I was trying to just get it up around the green and rely on my short game to get it up-and-down and move on. That's a big part of what you have to do around this golf course. Yeah, stayed really patient when I needed to. Then made some good swings and played a good stretch of holes there to finish up the round.”

Only three players have won this event back-to-back, with Tiger Woods being the last to achieve the feat more than 20 years ago. There’s a lot of water to flow under the Hogan Bridge, but, on this evidence, it’s a different McIlroy to the one who often made rash decisions here.

“I still have high expectations of myself,” he declared, “but my expectations are more, did I make good decisions today? Was I committed? Was I trusting? It wasn't my expectations of I'm going to go out and shoot 65 and did I do it?

I think it took me a while to get to that point where, if I focus on the process and the little mini goals of not compounding errors, like today, hitting it in trees and trying to be a hero, making good decisions, thinking my way around the golf course, I think those are the expectations I have for myself. And if I can live up to those expectations, then the scores and the results should take care of itself.”

Burns set up his strong start - it beat his previous best score by a shot - with an eagle at the second, where he hit a beauty over the top of the hill with his drive then knocked a 6-iron, describing it as his “shot of the day”, to 11 feet. “I drove it really nice and that obviously helps,” said the 29-year-old, who is making his fifth Augusta National appearance. “I think historically people who have success here play the par-5s really well, and we were able to do that today. It's a good recipe around this golf course, yeah.”

Shane Lowry joined his close friend McIlroy in making a promising start. Lowry’s 70 was a real roller-coaster ride. He started birdie-birdie before four-putting from inside 25 feet at the fourth then holing out from the fairway for an eagle-3 at the 13th.

“I'm pretty happy,” admitted the man who held his nerve to ensure that Europe retained the Ryder Cup last September. “Obviously I got off to a great start, and I was feeling great. Then obviously I had a mishap on the fourth, and I thought I did a great job of kicking on from there.”

Charl Schwartzel, the 2011 winner, talked about how he felt the course had been playing “tough” after having to settle for a 74. Echoing that view, Lowry said: “I think this could be the toughest Masters we've played in a while. I think over the last few years we've had a day every year where it's been raining or it's been heavy rains. It's kind of helped us a little bit, but I think before the week is out, it's going to get very, very crusty around here.”

On a day when two-time US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau had to settle for a 76 and fellow LIV Golf star Jon Rahm shot 78, Patrick Reed, the 2018 winner, overcame not having played competitively for more than a month to open with a 69, which was matched by former world No 1 Jason Day.

World No 1 and two-time winner Scottie Scheffler carded a 70 along with tree-time runner-up Justin Rose, who finished bogey-bogey, and 2024 Oprn champion Xander Schauffele. It was McIlroy’s effort, though, that caught the attention of Lowry. “It’s great to see him up there,” he said of his Ryder Cup team-mate before predicting: “Yeah, he will probably kick on and win four in a row or something.”

Tommy Fleetwood opened with a 71 - his lowest round here since 2020. It left him with mixed feelings, though, having made three birdies on the spin and four in total to be sitting pretty at the turn before mixing one birdie with four bogeys coming home. “Obviously feels disappointing after having such a good start,” admitted the FedEx Cup champion. “Felt like I got everything out of the front nine, but, yeah, I stumbled a little bit coming in. But it's difficult.”

Kurt Kitayama, who was pipped by Bob MacIntyre for DP World Tour Rookie of the Year in 2019, overcame a “dumb” play that cost him a double-bogey 5 at the 12th to sign for a 69. “I feel like I have a grind-it-out mentality,” said the American in assessing his day’s work. “So when it is tough and it's not going to be a shoot-out, it helps to stay patient and work through whatever challenges that come.”

Playing for the 37th time at the age of 60, Jose Maria Olazabal enjoyed seeing his name at the top of the leaderboard after covering the first 13 holes in two under before having to settle for a two-over 74. “For a little while I said to myself, ‘hey, I'm leading the Masters’,” said the Spaniard. “Obviously it was fun but, yeah, it was one of those things.”

Cameron Smith, the 2022 Open champion, opened with the same score after a birdie-birdie finish. “Kind of scratched it around today. Wasn't my best stuff for sure,” admitted the Australian, who missed the cut in all four majors last year and just doesn’t look like the same player who was in rampant form before joining LIV Golf.

It was a day to forget, meanwhile, for MacIntyre. Playing in the penultimate group with Scheffler, he dumped two balls in the water at the 15th en route to a quadruple-bogey 9. Signing for an 80, the Oban sits in a tie for 82nd after coming into the event with high hopes.