SORE GRASS

Out-of-sorts Rory blames bad driving as he suffers car-crash round in Florida

- NEIL SQUIRES

RORY MCILROY blamed his driver for a wayward start at The Players which leaves him facing an uphill struggle to make the cut.

The Northern Irishman never recovered from a scruffy double-bogey six at his opening hole - the 10th - and ended weakly with a bogey six as he shot an opening four-over-par 76.

That was his his worst round of the year and the 2019 Sawgrass champion finished some 12 strokes behind early clubhouse leader, world No.225 Chad Ramey.

Power and accuracy off the tee is usually McIlroy's strength. But he admitted: "I went to a new driver at Riviera three weeks ago and these driver heads are so finicky - it's hard to get one exactly the same.

"There's a part of it that's the user in fact, it's quite a lot of user error in there. But I  have just struggled a little bit off the tee in the last couple weeks.