McIlroy was pleased with a solid start to his Masters tournament but will be keeping an eye on Scottie Scheffler in round two in order to not drift too far from the leaders
I stuck to my game plan, I didn’t start chasing it. The way conditions were today, you really couldn’t. You had to stay patient and be as disciplined as possible. Anything under par today is a decent score. But, again, I will rue the last four holes – I felt like I could have got a little bit more out of it.”
McIlroy was forced to lay up at the par-five second after finding the pines off the tee and three-putted from off the green for bogey, then undid a close-range birdie at the next by failing to get up and down from the sand at the fourth.
The Northern Irishman took advantage of the par-five eighth and followed a birdie at the iconic par-three 12th by adding another at the par-four 14th, only to miss a great opportunity at the par-three 16th and bogey his penultimate hole to slip six strokes back.
“I held it together well,” McIlroy added. “It was a little scrappy. The conditions are tricky. It’s hard to commit to where the wind direction is at times. I think after the slow start sort of making a few birdies around the turn was good. A little wasteful coming in, but overall still not a bad score and obviously a lot of golf left to play.”
McIlroy was playing alongside Xander Schauffele and world No 1 Scottie Scheffler, who made a strong start to his bid for a second Masters victory in three years with a brilliant bogey-free 66.
Scheffler’s wife Meredith is heavily pregnant with their first child, which is due to arrive later this month, with the 2022 champion reiterating his pre-tournament commitment that he would withdraw from The Masters should she go into labour early.
