Rory rues ‘too many mistakes’ in sloppy first round

If Rory McIlroy is going to complete the career grand slam at Augusta National this week, he’s going to have to do it the hard way. 

The world No.4 made an erratic start to his opening round of The Masters, offsetting five birdies with six bogeys. 

The good news? He’s not out of it. Not by any means. He just needs to cut out the unforced errors, such as the back-to-back bogeys he closed out his round with.

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“I just made too many mistakes,” said McIlroy. “That was the problem. I’m making mistakes from pretty simple positions, just off the side of the green, 17 and 18 being prime examples of that.

“You never like to see six bogeys on the scorecard. That’s a little too many. I just need to tidy that up a bit.”

The four-time major champion hit only seven out of 14 fairways in the opening round – way below the field average – but, surprisingly, thought his biggest issues were on the green more so than off the tee.

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“I’m going to go to the putting green right now and try to figure this out, just sort of reads more than anything else,” he added. “I over-read a few early on, and then I started to under-read them coming in. I just need try to work on that a little bit.”