CHARLOTTE , N.C. — As hangovers go, this was a relatively mild one for Rory McIlroy.
Still, it took some time for him to get over his disappointing final-round showing at the Masters last month, failing to overtake eventual winner Patrick Reed to complete the rare and elusive career Grand Slam.
McIlroy said, after the Masters, that he “went home and sort of decompressed’’ for about a week before even thinking about picking up a golf club again.
“I binge-watched a couple of shows, read a couple of books, drank a few bottles of wine,’’ McIlroy said. “That sounds really bad. It wasn’t that bad. But it got to the point where [his wife] Erica had to drag me out of the house and say, ‘OK, we’re going to go do something.’
“Once I got back in my sort of routine, I was fine. I was disappointed because I just didn’t give a good account of myself the last day. Under the pressure of Sunday trying to chase Patrick down, it just never quite clicked for me. So it was disappointing that’s the way the week finished, but it was nowhere near as disappointing as the experience I had there a few years ago [his 2011 final-round collapse].
“At least I got myself in the final group, I gave myself a chance, and that will ultimately make next year easier when I hopefully get myself back in that position.’’
A month removed from the disappointment at Augusta, McIlroy has quickly put himself in position at the Wells Fargo Championship in his first tournament back since the Masters.
McIlroy, playing with Paul Casey and James Hahn in the morning wave of tee times, posted a 3-under 68 in Thursday’s opening round at Quail Hollow and stands three shots behind leader John Peterson entering Friday’s second round.
He won the Wells Fargo here in 2010 and 2015, though there have been some changes to the course, so this week serves as a soft landing spot for McIlroy, who hasn’t been shy professing his love for Quail Hollow.
But still, comfortable with the course or not, you have to make the shots. And, for the most part, McIlroy did Thursday.
“I would have taken 68 before I went out there,’’ McIlroy said. “My game felt a little bit rusty in the pro-am [Wednesday] and didn’t play that well. I went to practice a little bit on the range and found of couple of feelings that I was able to take from the range straight onto the golf course [Thursday], so that was nice.’’
Vaulting himself into early contention was exactly what McIlroy needed after his Masters shortcomings. One of the game’s streakiest players, he plays his best when he’s front-running. That’s when he’s most engaged in what he’s doing on the golf course.
So, in a reversal of his last month, when lounging on the couch binge-watching “Billions’’ and reading a couple books (“The Chimp Paradox’’ and “Essentialism’’) served as a diversion to the golf he didn’t want to play following his Masters disappointment, now golf has become the diversion to the diversions.
