McIlroy holds the top of the Arnold Palmer Invitational table

McIlroy birdie hole 2 with a 16.7 meter putt

McIlroy started from hole 10, scoring two birdies and a bogey in the first half of the round. In the opening match, former world number one played an average of 336 yards, hit eight of the 14 fairways and went green according to the standard 13 holes. Golfer born in 1989 scored birdies in three of the four par3 holes in Bay Hill, counted both phases using a five iron against the green, and then a putt within 4.5 meters.

“Last week, I was both off target by 20 yards. Now I’m happy to improve performance like that,” McIlroy said. In the first round, he hit 66 strokes – the best 18-hole record since the beginning of this year. And in the 17 rounds of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour, he only six times under 70 strokes.

In February 2021, McIlroy attended four PGA Tour events, of which one was eliminated – at the Genesis Invitational two weeks ago. As for those times, he was the highest in T6, at the WGC-Workday Championship on February 28.

This week, McIlroy is sharing the top of the table with Corey Conners. Yesterday, the Conners scored six birdies, an eagle and two bogeys. The Canadian player eagle hits a 16 hole after swinging his club twice and a putt of 1.5 meters.

Behind McIlroy and Conners is Bryson DeChambeau at -5. The PGA Tour “long shot” PGA Tour last season and this season wants to take a shortcut by crossing the lake to the green of the 6 par5 hole, 528 yards long. But yesterday, the wind was against so he gave up the idea. On DeChambeau to the teeing ground, the crowd of spectators waited for him to use the driver. However, DeChambeau initially used an iron to make jokes. Finally, he used his dedicated tee, followed the standard line – played 309 yards, down the fairway, added 213 yards to the green, nearly 10 meters from the hole and then two putt finished his work at the birdie point.

DeChambeau polished past the lake

The whole round, DeChambeau scored six birdies and one bogey.

In the top 10 after 18 holes, two Asian representatives are present, including An Byeong Hun and Im Sung-jae. An ranked T4 (score -4) and Im at T7 (-3). Im’s group has eight players in total. The defending champion Tyrrell Hatton is in T107 due to hit 77 strokes on opening day. After Kim Si Woo gave up, Arnold Palmer Invitational 2021 still has 122 golfers.

With the principle of taking top or T65 after 36 holes and 70 players from +1 point, the cutout is expected to be at +2. The tournament welcomes up to 5,000 field audiences per day.

Quoc Huy synthetic