'Scrappy' McIlroy leans on experience for share of Masters lead

The 36-year-old from Northern Ireland fired a five-under par 67 to match American Sam Burns atop the leaderboard by relaxing and counting on skill to rescue him no matter where tee shots land.

"I couldn't have got a lot more out of my round. I feel like I leaned heavily on my experience out there to do that," he said.

"My hope was to get off to a solid start. I feel like, the way I played, five-under exceeded where I thought I would be."

Defending champion McIlroy reached 13 of 18 greens in regulation despite his woes off the tee with his only better Masters start a 65 in 2011.

Not since Hideki Matsuyama in 2021's third round had anyone found only five Masters fairways and scored so well, with the Japanese star shooting 67 and winning the green jacket the next day.

"Winning a Masters makes it easier to win your second one," McIlroy said. "There's still shots out there that you feel a little bit tight with, and you just have to stand up and commit to making a good swing and not worry about really where it goes.

"It's easier for me to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know I can go to the Champions locker room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day."

McIlroy said he measures success not in scores but in how he plays the game.

"I still have high expectations of myself, but my expectations are more did I make good decisions today? Was I committed? Was I trusting?" McIlroy said.

"It wasn't my expectations of I'm going to go out and shoot 65 and did I do it?"

Trusting the process did not come quickly or easily.

"It took me a while to get to that point where, if I focus on the process and the little mini goals of not compounding errors like hitting it in trees and trying to be a hero, making good decisions, thinking my way around the golf course, those are the expectations I have for myself," McIlroy said.

"And if I can live up to those expectations, then the scores and the results should take care of itself."
Fairways a good thing
Still, after finding himself under the Georgia pines all too often in round one, McIlroy is aiming to land the ball in the short grass much more often on Friday, when he has a late start.

"Getting the ball in the fairway a little bit more I think would be a good thing," he said. "I'm going to be playing later in the day when the greens are at their fastest and firmest.

"Just being very aware of hole locations and making sure I'm trying to put the ball in the right spots on the greens."

McIlroy's 67 was lower than any of the first-round scores by any of the reigning champions who successfully defended their Masters crowns -- Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo.

"Felt like I got a lot out of my round," McIlroy said. "It started pretty scrappy. I was hitting out of the trees a little bit the first seven holes.

"I was trying to just get it up around the green and rely on my short game to get it up-and-down and move on. That's a big part of what you have to do around this golf course. Stayed really patient when I needed to."