{"id":363441,"date":"2025-08-22T01:08:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T01:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/363441\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T01:08:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T01:08:19","slug":"mcilroy-provides-thrills-but-henley-leads-tour-championship-after-61-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/363441\/","title":{"rendered":"McIlroy provides thrills but Henley leads Tour Championship after 61 | Golf"},"content":{"rendered":"

More Rory McIlroy drama in \u00adGeorgia. Events at the final hole of the \u00adopening round of the Tour Championship barely compared with what played out\u00a0at Augusta National in April<\/a> but these were still moments of \u00adMcIlroy box office. No wonder he stood \u00adlaughing with arm aloft.<\/p>\n

McIlroy found himself in a \u00adgreenside bunker in two at the par-five 18th. He caught his attempt from the sand trap far too cleanly, the ball \u00adflying over the flag and rebounding from a grandstand. The bounce was favourable; McIlroy had 17ft left for a birdie. The putt found the bottom of the cup, much to the amusement of McIlroy and his playing partner \u00adScottie \u00adScheffler. McIlroy\u2019s 66 at East Lake leaves him five shy of the first-round lead after Russell Henley\u2019s stunning 61.<\/p>\n

This was a fine day for Keegan \u00adBradley, were he not in the midst of the toughest choice of his professional career. Henley will play under \u00adBradley for the United States in the Ryder Cup next month. Scheffler continued his excellent form with a 63, including a back half of just 31. The 64s of \u00adPatrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas were notable with that trio likely to receive captain\u2019s picks from Bradley. The key dilemma surrounds whether Bradley is also going to select himself, thereby becoming the first playing captain in a Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963.<\/p>\n

Bradley\u2019s 70 here hardly added to the conversation. The 39-year-old did not hang around for media duties. Significant in this debate is what Bradley\u2019s peers will tell him to do. The mood music \u00adsuggests they want Bradley on this team. \u201cYeah, I would,\u201d said Thomas when asked whether he would pick Bradley. \u201cIt is a lot [to handle both jobs]. I think Keegan would say the same. I don\u2019t think he would say it\u2019s easy by any means. But myself, whatever other [vice-]captains, automatic qualifiers have all the faith in the world that whatever he decides to do is going to be in the best interest of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morikawa outlined the trickiness of the scenario: \u201cI think he\u2019s got one of the most difficult decisions \u00adanyone has ever had to make. He has put more hours than we could even ask and know about into this Ryder Cup and he still has played great golf. He\u00a0is\u00a0one of the best Americans as of right\u00a0now. But I truly do not know where his head sits and I don\u2019t want to be in that position.<\/p>\n

Tommy Fleetwood continuted his good form with a 64 at East Lake to be tied third after the first round of the Tour Championship. Photograph: Erik S Lesser\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you lose, every reason is going to come up. At the end of the day, we lost in Rome because we played bad golf and they played great golf. That\u2019s what it comes down to.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are European colours on the leaderboard. On what was a benign Atlanta day, with preferred lies allowed, Tommy Fleetwood and Robert MacIntyre joined the 64 club. Ludvig \u00c5berg signed for a 66.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the course was as forgiving as we\u2019re going to get it,\u201d \u00adFleetwood said. \u201cBut actually \u00adprobably the \u00adbiggest takeaway is how good \u00adeveryone is at golf that\u2019s here. I think the scoring is unbelievable. I\u2019m sure we could talk about the fact that we had soft conditions and they were receptive but you\u2019ve still got to play and you\u2019ve still got to hit the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was announced on the eve of this tournament that Cantlay would be among players on a new committee aimed at reshaping the PGA Tour. Tiger Woods will chair the group. \u201cTiger asked me to be on the committee, so I said yes,\u201d said Cantlay when asked his reasoning for being involved. With insight like this, what could go wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More Rory McIlroy drama in \u00adGeorgia. Events at the final hole of the \u00adopening round of the Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4106],"tags":[2826,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-363441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115069747463489568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}