Rory McIlroy was among the many afternoon tee occasions, alongside final month's PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka and 2021 Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama. Another featured group with loads of expertise was additionally getting their rounds off to a later begin with Tony Finau, Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth all hoping to grasp the situations across the Los Angeles course.

McIlroy was in bullish temper forward of the event about his possibilities to remain answerable for the situations. He stated: “With the way the fairways are running, my 5-wood down that eighth hole (a par 5) is going 300 yards, then you leave yourself a 4-iron into that green. You’re taking some of the trouble out of play with your tee shot by doing that.

“I feel like I’ve got three shots with each wedge. I put an extra wedge in the bag at the Memorial just to get used to it because I felt like going four wedges was going to be good for me. So, the fact that I have 12 yardages with those four wedges, I think I have all my bases covered. With those three numbers for each wedge, the longer one’s gonna spin more, the shorter one’s gonna spin less, you know, there’s a bit of overlap there too, so if I need to take spin off or put spin on, I’m sort of able to do it.”