Rory McIlroy cracks joke about his driving after fast start to BMW Championship

Rory McIlroy carded an opening round of 5-under 66 at the BMW Championship despite only hitting three fairways at Olympia Fields.

Ben Smith

17 Aug 2023

Rory McIlroy cracks joke about his driving after fast start to BMW Championship — Rory McIlroy cracks joke about his driving after fast start to BMW…

Rory McIlroy joked he was lucky the course was so soft after he birdied two of his final four holes to card a 5-under 65 in the opening round of the PGA Tour's BMW Championship.

McIlroy, 34, started his round with six consecutive pars before he sank a 12ft birdie putt on the par-5 7th at Olympia Fields in Chicago.

The Northern Irishman drained a putt from similar distance at the very next hole to turn in 33 before taking advantage of the short par-4 10th.

He blasted a drive 336 yards, stuffed his approach to 9ft and duly rolled in the putt to move to 3-under.

The four-time major champion then notched four consecutive pars before picking up another stroke at the par-5 15th.

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McIlroy then holed a chip from 40ft to move to 4-under at No. 17 before nonchalantly rolling in a 5ft putt at the final hole to save par.

His chip from off the green at 17 was all the more impressive given he had to blast his approach below the trees from the thick rough.

It meant he carded a bogey-free opening round at the second leg of the 2023 FedEx Cup playoffs.

What was interesting is that McIlroy only hit three fairways.

"Coming up with a 65 is a bit of a bonus," McIlroy told a pool of reporters after his round.

He added:

"The golf course being so soft, it's almost an advantage to be playing out of the rough going into some of these greens because you know the ball is not going to spin.

"I'm not saying I was trying to aim for the rough, but I was, I think, a lot of the tee shots I was just being super aggressive because I knew in the back of my mind I wasn't really being penalized for it.

"The golf course is certainly not playing the way it played in 2020. That was not my approach a few years ago here."

Is he more pleased with playing efficient golf or more alarmed by the lack of fairways hit?

"Oh, no, way more pleased to play efficient golf," he said.

"I don't lose a lot of confidence with the driver. One bad day is not going to make me lose any sleep.

"But hopefully with the wind and the sun, the golf course starts to firm up a little bit and starts to play a little bit more like how I think it should play."

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McIlroy is chasing the fourth FedEx Cup title of his career.

By day's end McIlroy was tied for the lead with champion golfer of the year Brian Harman with a host of big-name players out on the course that included Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa.

England's Matthew Fitzpatrick is tied third at 4-under alongside American Sahith Theegala.

Elsewhere Cameron Young, Corey Conners, Harris English, Jordan Spieth, Sungjae Im and defending champion Patrick Cantlay occupy positions inside the top-10.

Previous FedEx Cup champions