Commentary: At least Rory McIlroy talked after brutal first round at the British Open

TROON, Scotland – An official with the merciless job of coordinating interviews between reticent golfers and curious reporters popped into the tent midafternoon on Thursday with a quick announcement: Once Rory McIlroy completed No. 18 and his first round at the 152nd British Open, he would take three questions.

It marked an uptick.

When last coping with a gutting major disappointment, one of the most congenial pros ever seen fled his REM nightmare at Pinehurst by whooshing off the premises in a courtesy car, replacing the thousand words he might have spoken with a picture worth all of them. As he spoke amiably after his opening 7-over-par 78 on Thursday, another major and another major year looked done for him.

The streak nobody saw coming after 2014 seemed primed to reach 38 majors strewn across 10 golf seasons. “I mean, all I need is to focus on tomorrow and try to make the cut,” he said. “That’s all I can focus on.”

Royal Troon, where McIlroy finished tied for fifth at 4 under par at the 2016 Open even as that left him, like so many others, way behind winner Henrik Stenson and runner-up Phil Mickelson, had dashed him straightaway. It had done so just as his game seemed more than fine even with his minicollapse to second place at the U.S. Open, and just as aficionados wondered if he might replicate his trajectory from 2011 when he, at 21 and then 22, crumbled from ahead at the Masters only to dominate the U.S. Open at Congressional. The answer looked very much like a no, and Troon looked very much like a prankster.

“The conditions are very difficult in a wind that we haven’t seen so far this week,” he said. “I guess when that happens, you play your practice rounds, you have a strategy that you think is going to help you get around the golf course, but then when you get a wind you haven’t played in, it starts to present different options and you start to think about maybe hitting a few clubs that you haven’t hit in practice. Yeah, just one of those days when I just didn’t adapt well enough to the conditions.”

That feeling went around, rather as a throwback to days when golfers didn’t maul courses so much. By late afternoon, the best score remained Justin Thomas’ 3-under-par 68. Bryson DeChambeau, the one who pipped McIlroy at the end to win that U.S. Open, began with a 5-over 76.

“Yeah, it’s a completely different test,” DeChambeau said. “I didn’t get any practice in it, and I didn’t really play much in the rain.” He mentioned having finished eight in 2022 at St Andrews and said, “I can do it when it’s warm and not windy.”

McIlroy’s 78 became his harshest opening score in a major since the famed 2019 Open in Northern Ireland, when the pressure of a first major in his homeland seemed to weigh on him until the scales said 79. He shot 80 in the first round at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island (and whisked off wordlessly from there as well), and he shot 78 and 77 to open the two U.S. Opens preceding that.

This time, he finished seven holes in fine shape at level par, but then the two most famous holes on the course snared him. First came the Postage Stamp, No. 8, the little 123-yard antagonizer, where a missed green meant a double bogey. Soon, just after a bogey on No. 10 for good measure, came Railway, No. 11, the monster beside the train tracks where McIlroy hit it out of bounds and tacked on another double.

“Yeah, difficult day,” he said to question No. 1 in the interview area, a set of words he’s had to utter more times than people used to expect.