McIlroy Bounces Back From St Jude Misery to Share BMW Championship Lead
Rory McIlroy shot a six-under-par 64 at Bellerive Country Club to share the first-round clubhouse lead at the BMW Championship — a sharp turnaround from a 66th-place finish the week before.
The world number two birdied the 13th hole and three of his last four to join Americans Gary Woodland, Wyndham Clark, JJ Spaun and Chris Gotterup atop the leaderboard. Woodland also signed for a 64, despite bogeying the last. All five sat at six under when play concluded, with Japan's Ryo Hisatsune one shot back on five under BBC Sport.
A week earlier at the St Jude Championship, McIlroy had finished 66th — a result that prompted hard work with swing coach Michael Bannon and caddie Harry Diamond. McIlroy credited both for helping him restore his form ahead of this week, where the field is trimmed to 50 players as part of the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour BBC Sport.
The FedEx Cup playoffs are the PGA Tour's end-of-season knockout: a shrinking field across successive events, with every shot carrying weight toward the season championship. The BMW Championship, held this year in St Louis, Missouri, from August 20 to 23, carries a $20 million purse — $3.6 million to the winner Yahoo Sports.
World number one and defending champion Scottie Scheffler had a day to forget. He bogeyed four of his opening seven holes, a sluggish start that left the tournament's top-ranked player playing catch-up on a course that was yielding low scores to everyone else BBC Sport.
Scotland's Robert MacIntyre opened with a two-under 68, a respectable recovery after he withdrew from the St Jude Championship before its second round having shot an opening 12-over 82. Alex Fitzpatrick, Michael Thorbjornsen and Ludvig Aberg were tied for seventh on four under BBC Sport.
The day before the tournament began, McIlroy had been making headlines off the course, warning LIV Golf players of a "tough road back" to the PGA Tour. The 37-year-old, who turned professional in 2007 and has 30 PGA Tour career wins including one in 2026, did his talking on the scorecard on Thursday Reuters.
What stands out is the speed of the turnaround. A 66th-place finish one week, a share of the lead the next. McIlroy has been through enough of these cycles — major champion at 22, now a veteran with nearly two decades as a professional — to know that one good round settles nothing. But on a day when the world number one stumbled and the scoring was low, McIlroy's finish — three birdies in the last four holes, the kind of burst that turns an ordinary round into something threatening — put down a marker.
There are 54 holes left, and Bellerive was giving up shots freely. The leaderboard is bunched. But McIlroy, who tied for 12th at last year's BMW Championship, has positioned himself where he needs to be.
