McIlroy’s Rollercoaster Round Leaves Him Chasing at Pebble Beach, While Hisatsune Sets the Pace
Rory McIlroy’s title defense at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am got off to a turbulent start Thursday, as a promising round at Spyglass Hill was undone by a pair of costly double-bogeys on the back nine. Despite carding an eagle and six birdies in his opening round, McIlroy’s three-putt mistakes on back-to-back par-threes left him with a four-under 68 - a score that felt more like a missed opportunity than a solid foundation.
This wasn’t a case of a player struggling to find his game. McIlroy came out firing.
Starting on the back nine in calm conditions, he opened with back-to-back birdies and then holed out from a greenside bunker for eagle at the par-five 13th. He kept the pedal down by getting up and down from the sand again at the driveable par-four 17th, turning in a sizzling 31.
But the second nine told a different story.
After missing a chance to capitalize on the par-five first, McIlroy rolled in a 15-footer at the second to move to six under. That’s when the round took a turn.
At the par-three third, a three-putt from just eight feet led to a double-bogey. He bounced back quickly with a pinpoint approach into the par-four fourth for birdie, but another three-putt - this time from five feet - at the par-three fifth led to his second double-bogey in three holes.
That stretch took the wind out of what could’ve been a leaderboard-topping round. McIlroy couldn’t convert solid birdie chances at the seventh and eighth, but he did finish on a high note, sinking a 14-footer at the ninth to cap off his day.
Still, the damage was done. Ranked outside the top 70 in putting among the 80-man field after the round, McIlroy found himself outside the top 25 - not where you'd expect to find the defending champion after a day where he had so many positives tee-to-green.
While McIlroy battled inconsistency, Ryo Hisatsune put together a clean, clinical round across the bay at Pebble Beach. The Japanese standout closed his bogey-free 62 with three straight birdies, highlighted by an eagle and a birdie over his final three holes. That performance vaulted him to the top of the leaderboard and set the tone for a low-scoring day.
Sam Burns and Keegan Bradley weren’t far behind, each signing for bogey-free 63s. Burns, in particular, delivered one of the shots of the day with a late eagle at the 17th to pull even with Bradley and position himself nicely heading into Friday.
Meanwhile, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler couldn’t find his rhythm. A frustrating 72, marred by three bogeys, left him well off the pace and searching for answers.
“I feel like typically I’m good at scoring, and today I felt like I didn’t score at all,” Scheffler admitted. “Anything that kind of went wrong seemed to be going that direction. I actually feel like I’m playing pretty well - just one of those days.”
He also pointed to the late-day conditions on Pebble’s greens as a factor: “When you're playing later in the day, it can be tough to hole putts on these greens.”
Elsewhere in the field, Justin Rose turned in a solid 69, one shot behind fellow Brit Harry Hall. But Swede Ludvig Åberg continued to struggle in the early part of the season, carding a seven-bogey 75 that left him well down the board.
With low scores out there and two courses in rotation, there’s still plenty of golf to be played. But for McIlroy, the margin for error just got a little slimmer.
The good news? He’s striking the ball well.
If he can clean up the putting, he’s still very much in this.