Mixed day as McIlroy opens with round of 69
McIlroy is one of five players who know victory at East Lake would also see them secure the overall FedEx Cup title won by Sweden’s Henrik Stenson last year, the others being Chris Kirk, Billy Horschel, Bubba Watson and Hunter Mahan.
And the world number one was just two off the lead after playing his first 18 holes in one under par 69 as the 29-strong field found scoring conditions unexpectedly difficult.
McIlroy pushed his drive on the first and saw his attempted recovery shot clip a tree and travel only 40 yards, but the 25-year-old’s third shot grazed the side of the hole as it rolled past and he holed from eight feet for par.
A superb approach to two feet set up McIlroy’s first birdie of the day on the third, but he promptly gave that shot back after a poor drive on the fourth and hit an even worse drive on the next. Fortunately for the four-time major winner, his ball bounced out of the trees and allowed him to find the green with his approach and make par, while he holed from six feet on the sixth to get back into red figures.
That did not last long after two visits to sand on the seventh cost him a bogey, but McIlroy again rebounded immediately with a birdie from eight feet on the eighth.
Another birdie chance went begging from 10 feet on the par-five ninth, but at one under McIlroy was just two behind American duo Ryan Palmer and Patrick Reed, with playing partner Watson, Kirk and Cameron Tringale all on two under.
McIlroy’s long and straight driving has been his major weapon this season, helping him win the Open Championship, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and US PGA. However, he was struggling to find the fairways at East Lake and another errant drive found a fairway bunker on 10, where he had to settle for par.
McIlroy then bogeyed the 11th after duffing his second shot from the fringe and dropped back to level par, three behind Reed, former FedEx winner Bill Haas and Masters champion Watson, who had holed from eight feet on the 10th.
McIlroy was looking increasingly frustrated as he remained level par after 15 holes, although he was at least fortunate to still be within sight of the leaders.
Reed, Watson, Jason Day and Jim Furyk are the clubhouse leaders on three under, with Haas three-putting the last from 10 feet to drop back to two under.
Tournament officials had already announced today’s tee times had been brought forward by three hours due to bad weather being forecast.
Earlier McIlroy defended his comments about Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson being in “the last few holes of their careers”.
McIlroy first addressed the issue during his pre-tournament press conference at the Tour Championship which did not feature either Woods or Mickelson for the first time since 1992.
The 25-year-old was asked if that represented a changing of the guard in golf and said: “Not really. I mean, Phil has played well in parts this year. He came really close to winning the PGA (finishing second behind McIlroy). I feel like he’s gotten a little better as the year has went on.
“But it’s a lot of golf for him to play in such a short space of time. So you could see he was getting a little tired the last couple of weeks. And, I mean, Tiger’s not here just because he’s been injured or he is injured. He hasn’t had the opportunity to play.”
* McIlroy earlier won the Race to Dubai European Tour Golfer of the Month award for the third time this year following his August triumph at the US PGA Championship.
World number one McIlroy earns an alms dish and jeroboam of champagne for winning his third such award in the last four months, a run which has been achieved just twice before, by Henrik Stenson last year and by Ian Woosnam in 1987.
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