OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Rory McIlroy seems to have found a good 3-wood.
And a second wind.
And a new putter and driver.
Three days after he tried to throw his 3-wood to the Jersey Turnpike in the final round of the Northern Trust, McIlroy used an old 3-wood he had in his garage to lace a shot 285 yards to 10 feet on the 16th hole and knocked in the putt for his first eagle in 516 holes in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, one of the many highlights during Thursday’s first round of the BMW Championship at soft, hot Caves Valley Golf Club.
And McIlroy looked to be on the energetic side after saying on Wednesday that he had played too much golf this season and was exhausted and looking for some time off. Now he’s looking to take the lead in the FedEx Cup race.
McIlroy shot an 8-under-par 64 to grab a share of the lead alongside world No. 1 Jon Rahm and Sam Burns. A shot back was Sergio Garcia. Two back were Abraham Ancer and Patrick Cantlay. Among those three back were Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and Northern Trust winner, Tony Finau.
“I’ve went through playoff stretches before where you’re always in that lead group. You’re either one, two or three in the FedExCup, and that can sort of take its mental toll over the few weeks,” said McIlroy, who is 28th in the standings (only the top 30 advance). “Where now I’m in a position where I need to play well just to play next week. There is an element of free-wheeling, I guess.
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“And the energy thing; I was super tired yesterday. But you get a good night’s sleep and you feel a little bit better the next day and you can go out and play well. Another good night’s sleep tonight and get up, get back out on the golf course, and try and do the same stuff that I did today.”
McIlroy spent hours on the driving range at Caves Valley trying to find a new 3-wood and a new driver (his old one was making the ball spin too much). He also switched out putters, going with a Spider model.
“I went home, I went down to Florida after Northern Trust on Monday night, went into the garage and rummaged through a few different things, got my old putter back out, got my old 3-wood, brought a few shafts out, tried different shafts in the driver, went to a new shaft in the driver, and it seemed to work out today,” McIlroy said. “It’s not as if I was driving the ball badly. Like I just had a driver I felt was spinning a little too much, so a couple of times last week into the wind I’d hit it and it would balloon up in the air and then if I wanted to try to hit a cut off the tee, I was not comfortable doing it because I felt like I was losing too much distance by hitting the cut. Getting a driver that just spins a little less makes it more comfortable for me to aim up the left side and peel it off if I want to.”
And this course lets the big dog eat, which McIlroy eats up.
“It lets you hit driver, first and foremost,” said McIlroy, who hit 13 of 14 fairways. “I think there’s a lot of courses we play nowadays where a lot of fairways pinch in at 300, 310 (yards). It doesn’t allow the long hitters to hit driver a lot; last week being a pretty good example of that. Whenever you get a big golf course like this that allows the big hitters to hit driver, that’s usually a big advantage.
“It’s nice to get driver in your hand and be able to feel like you can let it fly a bit.”
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