AUGUSTA, Ga. — After the career grand slam, a grand entrance.
Rory McIlroy, who last year became the sixth man to win all four major championships, got off to a spectacular start at the Masters on Thursday to claim a share of the lead with a five-under-par 67.
In one sense, the pressure is off. No more wondering about winning a green jacket. Yet he was relieved to feel those familiar butterflies on the first tee.
“Look, we’re playing the first major of the year, it’s the Masters,” he said, having overcome a slightly wobbly start to collect five birdies in his final 11 holes. “If I felt absolutely nothing on that first tee, that’s not a good sign.
“So it was nice to feel my hand shaking a little bit when the tee went into the ground, and struggle to put the ball on top of the tee. So I knew I was feeling it. That’s a good thing. That’s why we want to be here. We want to be able to play our best golf when we’re feeling like that.”
He finished the postcard day tied atop the leaderboard with Sam Burns, who shot his best-ever round at the Masters.
Among those two shots off the lead is 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed, who said the warm and dry conditions figure to make a difficult course even more challenging.
“It definitely has the teeth in it to make it really, really tough,” Reed said. “The greens are already getting firm, crusty, and bouncy.”
He said the 17th green, typically one of the firmest on the course, is a good example of that.
“I actually broke one tee on the hole trying to fix a ball mark,” he said. “You already know it’s going to get crusty. You know it’s going to get fast, and it’s going to take a lot of patience.”
Some stars struggled. Two-time champion Bubba Watson shot four-over, as did the long-hitting Bryson DeChambeau, who tied for fifth last year.
Said Shane Lowry, who finished two under: “This might be the toughest Masters we’ve played in a while.”
There’s something about this storied tournament that can make even the steeliest of players weak in the knees. Mason Howell, the 18-year-old amateur playing with McIlroy, was taking such vicious swings at the ball that his hat came off three times during his round, including on the opening tee.
“That hasn’t happened in a while,” said Howell, who last year became the third-youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur. “I mean, I was going to swing out of my shoes to see if I could cover that right bunker [on No. 1].”
Even the legendary Jack Nicklaus, who won the Masters a record six times, duck-hooked his ceremonial tee shot early Thursday morning, sending it over the head of patrons lining the left side of the downward slope in front of him.
“I got it high enough to hit it about 110 yards over their heads to the left,” said Nicklaus, 86, who won his last green jacket 40 years ago. “I don’t know what was running through my mind other than not hurt anybody.”
Fred Couples, 66, the oldest competitor in the field, went from a tie for eighth to a tie for 43rd … on one hole. He had a nine on the par-five 15th, landing in the water twice.
Couples, who had been two under to that point, finished quadruple bogey, double bogey, double bogey.
Collin Morikawa, who shot a 74 at two over, said he doesn’t feel quite right, physically, although it doesn’t feel like a back issue to him.
“Physically there’s no pain,” he said. “It’s just a trust thing. My legs don’t want to trust that it’s going to hold up the back and the rest of the body. When that’s feeling wobbly, plus you add the adrenaline and the nerves, it’s just not — it’s not easy…”
He called Thursday “the toughest round I’ve ever played,” and said he could not remember waking up quite as nervous as he was before the start of this tournament.
“I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make contact,” he said.
McIlroy, playing in his 18th Masters, said he leaned heavily on his experience to maintain an even keel. A year ago, he had two double-bogeys on Thursday, and two more on Sunday, yet never panicked.
So this time, when he found himself hitting out the trees on some early holes, he resisted the urge to get too “guide-y” on his shots and instead kept swinging away.
“Even though I wasn’t hitting fairways the first few holes, I still kept swinging,” he said. “I didn’t try to get the tee down and hit fairway finders. I just trusted that eventually I’ll start to make some good swings. So that was a little bit different.”
The biggest difference? What he achieved a year ago.
“It’s easier for me,” McIlroy said, “to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go to the Champions Locker Room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day.”
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