Golf sensation Rory McIlroy lost the U.S. Open by one stroke to Bryson DeChambeau, and it appears they will again be neck-in-neck at the British Open. Only this time, it may not be for anything meaningful.
Both players struggled on the first day, as the wind seemed to impact them considerably more than any of the other big names.
DeChambeau finished with a 5-over 76 on Thursday and McIlroy was even worse — finishing two strokes behind that. He trailed leader Justin Thomas by a massive 10 strokes.
"Difficult day," McIlroy said, via ESPN. "I felt like I did OK for the first part of the round and then missed the green at the Postage Stamp there and left it in and made a double. But still, I felt like I was in reasonable enough shape being a couple over through 9, thinking that I could maybe get those couple shots back, try to shoot even par, something like that."
DeChambeau admitted the wind troubled him.
"It was in and off the right, and I was trying to draw the ball and the ball was knuckling a little bit," DeChambeau said. "It was a really difficult challenge, and I should have just cut the ball."
On the bright side, these tournaments last four days and there is still time to make up ground. Now they're just hoping the wind blows away.
"Even though the wind on the back nine was helping, it was a lot off the left," McIlroy said. "I was actually surprised how difficult I felt like the back nine played. I thought we were going to get it a little bit easier than we did. The course was playing tough. The conditions are very difficult in a wind that we haven't seen so far this week."
