Rory McIlroy bemoans 'inconsistent greens' on day of 'weird things' in The Open

The world No 2 had to settle for a two-over-par 72 in his opening circuit at Royal Birkdale, where American debutant Jackson Suber set the pace in the final men’s major of the season.

McIlroy’s card contained six bogeys and he had a fortuitous break at last to thank for a birdie going down on his card to finish rather than another dropped shot.

“I'll start with the positives,” said the Masters champion afterwards. “I drove the ball incredibly well. I took the golf course on off the tee.

“Obviously with the positions that I put myself in off the tee, I feel like I obviously should have shot a better score. Played the hard holes well. Birdied 13, 15 and 18 on the back.

“The two bogeys on the par-5s (14th and 17th) wasn't great and I struggled the first two holes to get the speed of the greens. I felt like they were very inconsistent, just because some parts of the greens are still alive and growing and other parts have went really dead.

“It sort of reminds me a bit of Pebble Beach when Pebble Beach gets like that for a US Open. It's just hard to judge the speed sometimes. Struggled with that early on.

“Sort of felt like I got it going a little bit, but yeah, 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.”

The six-time major winner is sitting joint-85th heading into the second circuit, heading back out at the Southport venue at just after 10am on Friday morning.

“Not too far away,” he added. “Hopefully we'll get the better conditions tomorrow and maybe the greens are a little bit smoother in the morning. Go out there and shoot a good one and get myself right back in it for the weekend.

“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 again. Hopefully I can take advantage of the more benign conditions in the morning and shoot one under par and get back in it.”

The course is easily the most-fiery test for this event for a long time, with some players being aggressive but others adopting a safety first strategy.

”I felt like I learned quite a bit today about how the course is playing, how the ball is reacting out of the first cut of rough,” observed McIlroy, the 2014 winner at Royal Liverpool.

“Definitely when it gets that burnt and that dry, it can sort of do some weird things. I feel like it exaggerates the spin quite a lot. If you're hitting a draw or hitting a fade, it seems to exaggerate the spin on the ball a lot. Happened to me a few times out there.”