ATLANTA — Happy father, joyful round.
Free of expectations and worry, an exhausted Rory McIlroy took to East Lake Golf Club four days after becoming a father for the first time and turned in a 6-under-par 64 in Friday’s first round of The Tour Championship, a round highlighted by three closing birdies and eight in all.
With his wife, Erica, and daughter, Poppy — who introduced herself to the world at 12:15 p.m. ET Monday — doing just fine in Florida, McIlroy got into a bubble of concentration and the defending champion turned in one of his best rounds in weeks as he looks to win the FedEx Cup for an unprecedented third time.
Naturally, McIlroy thought of his family during the round – “It’s like every three hours she’s supposed to be fed, so I’m like, ‘OK, there’s a feeding coming up,’” he said – but for the most part, his mind was on his game.
And his game was on point. His first shot since last Sunday’s final round of the BMW Championship was a 340-yard drive that found the fairway. From there, he hit the flag on the fly and then knocked in a 6-footer for birdie.
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He bogeyed holes three and eight when missing the fairway, but his iron play was stellar and his putter was working superbly to make up for more erratic tee balls to come. In addition to his eight birdies, he left another birdie try on the lip and rimmed another try for a red number.
“Golf was the furthest thing from my mind the first few days this week,” he said. “And then once we got home on Wednesday and everything was good and mom and baby were healthy, that sort of took a load off my mind, and that meant I could come here and somewhat focus on what I’m supposed to do.
“It just shows you golf is such a mental game, and if you come in with low expectations, that’s always when I’ve played well. Whether I don’t feel like my game is in a good place or I’m not the favorite coming into a tournament, all that stuff, I feel like that’s when I usually play my best and I can play with a bit of freedom, and that’s what I did today.
“I played as good as I have in a long time, and that was very encouraging.”
With the staggered scoring format in play this week, McIlroy began the day seven shots out of the lead. About five hours later, he was four back of Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm, who toppled Johnson in a playoff at the BMW Championship.
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Last year, McIlroy started five shots out of the lead before roaring to victory.
“For the most part I hit a lot of good iron shots, good wedge shots again,” McIlroy said. “That’s been something in my game that’s been pretty good over the last few weeks, even though the results haven’t been there.
“I just need to get the ball in the fairway more. If I can get the ball in the fairway, I can take advantage of how my iron play is. I love these greens. I’ve always putted these greens well and I putted them well again today. Just a few more balls in the fairway and hopefully I’ll be right there.”
The No. 4 player in the world hasn’t been right there since COVID-19 shut down the PGA Tour in March. McIlroy was the hottest player in the world at the time, with seven consecutive top-5 finishes, including a victory in the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions.
But since golf returned in June, McIlroy hasn’t had a top-10 in eight starts, with last week’s tie for 12th in the BMW Championship his best finish. McIlroy said dealing with a perfect storm of worrying about his wife and expectant daughter, having energy issues playing in front of no fans, and losing focus from time to time and fighting to motivate himself attributed to his poor stretch.
“You’re in limbo a little bit. Your body is here and your mind is trying to be here, but your mind is also sort of divided and back (at home). It’s not an excuse. It wasn’t a distraction, but it was on my mind,” McIlroy said of the pregnancy. “At the end of the day I just didn’t play well enough over the last few weeks to get myself into contention, and I never want to make the excuse that there was other things on my mind, because you should be able to concentrate for that 15 or 20 seconds you’re over a golf shot to do what you need to do.”
He did what he needed to do in the first round to get into contention.
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