Former world No 1 Rory McIlroy suffered a horror start to the PLAYERS Championship, finishing the opening round on seven over par and 14 shots off the pace.
It was a day to forget for McIlroy at TPC Sawgrass with his title defence all but down the drain, following the difficult opening he endured on Thursday.
McIlroy signed off with a quadruple bogey on the 18th hole, summarising a disastrous reflection only a day after he said the best is yet to come in his career.
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‘You’re trying to figure it out but you still know you’re not really sure where the shots are coming from,’ McIlroy tried to explain after the first round in Florida.
‘It’s sort of as I said earlier in the week, it’s hard to at least to try to eliminate one side of the golf course, basically.’
The Northern Irishman settled for a round of 79 but was properly humbled on the final hole. McIlroy twice directed his ball into the water, boarding the left side of the narrow fairway, before three-putting his way to an eight.
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‘Obviously the big number on 18 didn’t help and then doubling the 1st wasn’t helpful either. I just think just it’s hard to recover when you just haven’t played good. Regardless if you take that 18th hole out, it still wasn’t a very good day,’ he added.
McIlroy will start Friday’s second round in T134 with a lot of work to do in order to make the cut by the end of the second round.
