SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — There were no “I’m so bad at golf” exclamations from Rory McIlroy this time.The puzzled looks, shakes of the head and sagging shoulders said it all.McIlroy was just 10 holes into his bid to win the British Open for the first time since 2014 and he was veering dangerously close to playing himself out of title contention.Missing one putt from four feet wasn’t necessarily unusual. But doing it three times? In the space of four holes?That trio of bewildering close-range mishaps — on Nos. 7, 8 and 10 — came either side of McIlroy driving the green to make birdie on the 415-yard No. 9. Go figure.And it pretty much summed up the world No. 2’s wild late-afternoon ride in a 2-over 72 that included six bogeys and left him seven shots off the first-round lead, held surprisingly by 115th-ranked Jackson Suber on Thursday.“Just too many stupid mistakes,” McIlroy said — and he was specifically referring to his putting on greens he described as “very inconsistent”
“I missed a couple early on that looked like they were going to break one way and they actually went another way, and then when you get the next one, you’re over it and it’s just very hard to trust that the ball is going to do what you think it’s going to do. Then you maybe don’t make quite as committed of a stroke.”McIlroy arrived at the Open after a seventh-place finish at the Scottish Open, where he went viral by shouting “I’m so bad at golf” following a poor approach shot late in his final round.
