Rory McIlroy may perhaps have second-guessed his decision to belatedly add the Texas Children’s Houston Open on to his playing itinerary for a large stretch of the opening round, where heavy rain conspired to make for challenging conditions at the Memorial Park municipal course in downtown Houston.
Indeed, the world number two – looking for a third win of the season on the PGA Tour and aiming to follow-up his win in The Players a fortnight ago with a further momentum driver towards the Masters in two weeks – struggled for large tracts, ultimately managing to sign for a level-par 70 that left him with work to do if he’s to play his way back towards contention in the $9.5 million purse event.
“A little pedestrian, I guess,” came McIlroy’s post-round observations of a day’s work that started in heavy rainfall and where his game only improved when he could dispense with the rain gear as his first round score left him trailing early clubhouse leaders Alejandro Tosti of Argentina and American Ryan Gerard, who carded 65s, by five shots.
McIlroy’s round – two birdies, two bogeys – failed to find any real spark: he bogeyed the 14th, having started on the 10th, after driving into the right rough and, then, after finally managing a birdie on the Par 5 third (his 12th) of the round, he immediately gave it back with a bogey on the fourth where he found the left rough off the tee. He managed to get back to parity with a birdie on the par 5 eighth.
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“We had to deal with those conditions early on, rainy and not too pleasant to play in. I made a few par saves early on that I need to and then had quite a few chances on the second nine there that I didn’t convert. So yeah, sort of tale of two halves. I felt like I was scrambling for the most part on the first nine and then I feel like I left a couple out there on the last nine,” said McIlroy who, in fact, found only eight of 13 fairways and hit 12 of 18 greens in regulation.
He added: “I drove it better once I got my rain gear off. I couldn’t really find the middle of the club face for the first few holes. Once it brightened up and as the conditions got a little better, I felt like I drove it pretty well.”
McIlroy, a winner of the AT&T Pebble Beach pro-am and The Players so far this season, hadn’t played in the Houston Open in 11 years but added it to his scheduling as a final competitive outing ahead of the Masters.
“I think a little bit of experience around this course isn’t a bad thing and I’m sort of just trying to learn as I go along,” admitted McIlroy of trying to quickly learn a new course.
In the Ford Championship on the LPGA Tour, Europe Solheim Cup star Charley Hull shot a sensational bogey-free opening round of nine-under-par 63 (a career low first round for the English player) to assume the clubhouse lead.
Leona Maguire had a poor start, two over through her opening six holes, but fought back to sign for a two-under-par 70 which included a hat-trick of birdies from the 11th.
