{"id":15898,"date":"2025-08-22T09:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T09:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/15898\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T09:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T09:57:07","slug":"rory-mcilroy-four-under-after-opening-round-in-atlanta-shane-lowry-level-par-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/15898\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy four-under after opening round in Atlanta, Shane Lowry level par \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy<\/a> got off to a positive start at the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta, carding an opening round 66 to sit joint-eighth on four-under-par.<\/p>\n

McIlroy held par for the opening holes before landing an eagle on the par-5 sixth and birdieing the seventh. On the back nine, he managed three further birdies, but bogeyed the 14th and 17th.<\/p>\n

Russell Henley of the US leads on nine-under in what is the final event of the FedEx Cup playoffs \u2013 with a $10 million pay-day to the ultimate winner in the limited 30-man field \u2013 two shots ahead of his compatriot Scottie Scheffler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shane Lowry<\/a> was steady without firing on all cylinders, signing for a round of 70 which featuring two birdies and two bogeys. This PGA Tour<\/a> finale doesn\u2019t offer him any Ryder Cup<\/a> points as that European qualifying process finishes at the British Masters on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Lowry, currently sixth and occupying the final automatic place, has his focus on the Tour Championship, aware that his Ryder Cup automatic qualifying largely depends on what happens in the English midlands where Rasmus Hojgaard has the chance to leapfrog him. If that happens, Lowry will require a wild card pick.<\/p>\n

In the British Masters at The Belfry, Hojgaard \u2013 currently eighth in the European Ryder Cup standings and needing a tied-29th finish or better to overtake Lowry \u2013 carded an opening round 69 to sit in tied-12th, three stokes behind a quartet of co-leaders.<\/p>\n

Thomas Aiken, Matthias Schwab, Haotong Li and Marcel Siem all signed for six-under-par 66s in the tournament which marks the conclusion of the year-long qualifying for Luke Donald\u2019s team to face the Americans at Bethpage in New York next month.<\/p>\n

Matt Fitzpatrick, who can\u2019t claim an automatic place on Donald\u2019s team even with a win, is hoping to be in the frame for a wild card pick from the captain: \u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of good stuff in the summer that I\u2019m sure he\u2019s (Donald) seen as well, and hopefully that makes the majority of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week obviously is another opportunity to play well, that\u2019s why I\u2019m here, to do that. And then obviously to get off to a good start is always nice and hopefully keep on. I think everyone at home knows what the Ryder Cup means. It means the world to be part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s normally the first thing \u2013 outside of winning a major, it\u2019s the first thing on a goal sheet at the start of every year of a Ryder Cup. I obviously want to be there. It\u2019s a great opportunity to do something that\u2019s not been done in a long time (to win away), and to be part of that would be special,\u201d said Fitzpatrick, who opened with a 67 to sit one off the pace.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dermot McElroy, who has endured a tough season on the Hotelplanner Tour, finally turned things around with a bogey-free 66 to claim the first round lead in the Dutch Futures at Spijk.<\/p>\n

McElroy has yet to win on the European pathway circuit and, currently ranked 94th in the Race to Mallorca standings, is aiming for a strong finish to the season with six events left ahead of the Rolex Grand Final.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good week here would be huge,\u201d said McElroy, who took a one-shot lead over Euan Walker and Nathan Legendre. \u201cTo be honest, I\u2019ve played terrible all year barring one good result. I\u2019ve been practising really hard all season, and I\u2019m really pleased with how I am starting to hit the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy got off to a positive start at the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta, carding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,14408,5948,5951,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-15898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-pga-tour","12":"tag-ryder-cup","13":"tag-shane-lowry","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}