ORLANDO – Rory McIlroy followed his game plan for Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club and Lodge perfectly. He drove it in the fairways, holed a few putts and dominated the four par 5s to the tune of 5 under en route to shooting 7-under 65.
“It felt as good as it has for a long time,” he said of his game.
Good enough to stake him to a three-stroke lead during the first round of the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational at a course where he’s a past champion in 2018 and recorded five consecutive top-10s, the longest active streak at the tournament. Not quite of the same level as Tiger Woods winning eight times here, but none too shabby.
“It’s one of these courses that I don’t feel like I have to do anything special to compete,” McIlroy explained on Wednesday. “I can play within myself. You take care of the par-5s here. You play conservatively the rest of the way, especially how the golf course here has been set up the past few years. You play for your pars, and then you try to pick off birdies on the par-5s and some of the easier holes. If you just keep doing that day after day, you’re going to find yourself around the top of the leaderboard.”
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McIlroy, who won the CJ Cup in October, cited a goal of winning six times this year and said his game felt sharp coming out of the Genesis Invitational, where he posted three rounds in the 60s and finished tied for 10th. To find the winner’s circle more frequently, he noted there are two keys: he needs to hit more than 60 percent of his fairways (he hit 57.35 percent of fairways last season, which ranked No. 145 on Tour, and his rough proximity on approach shots ranked No. 154) and improve his proximity inside 150 yards (he ranked No. 141 from 75-100 yards).
On Thursday, his tee game was on point as he hit 15 of 18 fairways.
“I think, when Rory’s on with his driver, there’s no one better in the world than Rory with a driver,” said Graeme McDowell, who opened with 4-under 68. “You can really kind of bring this course slightly to its knees. Not totally to its knees, but slightly if you drive it well here.”
“When he’s hitting it straight like today, it’s easy to kind of make any course look fairly simple from there,” added Adam Scott, who played in McIlroy’s threesome and fired a 68 of his own.
McIlroy also was pleased with his long iron play, noting a pair of 4-irons that he hit on Nos. 6 and 12 to set up birdies.
“They were probably two of the best long irons I hit in a while,” he said. “When I start hitting long irons like that, I know my swing is in a pretty good place.”
While Bay Hill certainly rewards goods driving, Scott said McIlroy’s game was hitting on all keys.
“I thought his speed, his putting was beautiful today,” Scott said. “You’ve got to hole a few putts to get to 7-under around here. I thought all of his game looked really good.”
McIlroy has found his rhythm on the greens, highlighted by a 41-foot eagle putt at the par-5 16th, which was the longest eagle putt of his Tour career.
“No way,” McIlroy said when told of the feat. “A 40-footer up the hill, I was just trying to get it close and if it drops, it’s a bonus.”
McIlroy ranked first in Stroked Gains: Putting when he won the CJ Cup and finished in the top 10 in that statistical category at the Genesis Invitational.
“I’ve actually really enjoyed not having a green book,” McIlroy said of the pocket-sized books featuring highly detailed illustrations of the putting surfaces, which were banned at the start of the year. “I feel like it’s got me more into the putts…Honestly, I feel like it’s benefited me these last few weeks, and that’s been a nice thing.”
Why Palmer’s winter retreat has always fit McIlroy’s eye isn’t really that complicated a mystery. But McDowell may have summed it up succinctly.
“Don’t know,” McDowell said. “He’s just good, isn’t he?”
