Most new fathers will present something special to their baby to celebrate their birth, a keepsake they can look back upon and cherish when they grow up.
Rory McIlroy got a birdie for his baby girl on the first hole of competition at the Tour Championship.
That was a sweet gesture, but maybe he has something bigger in mind. Perhaps he wants to give the lass a FedEx Cup championship. He’s trending that way.
McIlroy opened defense of his FedEx Cup victory Friday by shooting a first-round 64. That leaves him in fourth place, four shots behind the leaders. Not bad for a guy who hadn’t picked up a golf club from Sunday until he arrived at East Lake on Thursday.
“It’s been an unbelievable week, and I’m trying to put the icing on the cake,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy and his wife, Erica, welcomed daughter Poppy on Monday. With the baby safe and healthy, and with mom surrounded by helpful family members, McIlroy left his south Florida home in attempt to win the Tour Championship for a second consecutive year.
“It just shows you golf is such a mental game, and if you come in with low expectations, that’s always how I’ve played well,” McIlroy said. “Whether I don’t feel like my game is in a good place or I’m not the favorite coming into a tournament, all that stuff, I feel like that’s when I usually play my best and I can play with a bit of freedom, and that’s what I did today.”
McIlroy obviously meant business on the first tee, where he launched his drive 330 yards, the longest he’s ever hit on that hole. That left him 139 yards, and the wedge stopped six feet from the hole. The birdie putt was perfect, and McIlroy had his success on his first hole as a dad.
He finished the front nine with three birdies and two bogeys, making the turn in 34. He caught fire on the back nine to shoot 30 and birdied the final three holes.
McIlroy overcame some misfortune on the 18th hole when he bombed it 366 yards – about a yard into the hazard and resting on a downslope and was lucky it didn’t roll into the pond. He muscled the ball out of the thick stuff and powered it to the right frontside bunker. He blasted the approach to three feet and made the birdie.
“To shoot 64 on this golf course, you’re going to take that every day,” McIlroy said.
The 64 matches McIlroy’s best score on East Lake, the other coming in 2016 when he won the Tour Championship. McIlroy has shot no worse than 68 on seven of his past eight rounds at the Tour Championship.
McIlroy acknowledged that his focus wasn’t always the best Friday. He found his mind drifting and think about his new daughter.
“It’s like every three hours she’s supposed to be fed, so I’m like, OK, there’s a feeding coming up,” he said. “But like it’s natural. It’s natural that in between shots you think about other things, and obviously my mind has been very much on what’s going on at home. But it is nice to have this little 4-5 hours to myself to concentrate on my game and sort of get into this stuff.
“I played well today. I played really well. I played as good as I have in a long time, and that was very encouraging.”
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