Rory ready to rid his Friday demons

Rory McIlroy will try and forget his recent Friday woes today as he bids to extend his one-shot first-round lead and take a firm grip on the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.

The strong opening round, as laudable as his bogey-free six-under-par 66 was yesterday, has come to be expected from McIlroy, whose lowest rounds of the season on both sides of the Atlantic, a 63 have come on a Thursday. He leads the PGA Tour in first-round scoring average on 68.00 and a week ago carded a course-record 64 at Royal Aberdeen in the Scottish Open.

Thursdays, then, are not the problem. What follows is the cause of McIlroy’s grief, his Scottish 64 parlaying into a 78 and the Memorial 63 succeeded by a 78. It has got to the point where the two-time major winner admitted before this week’s Open began that the “Freaky Friday” issue was getting inside his head.