Honda Classic 2014: Rory McIlroy lights up Palm Beach, first round leaderboard

The Honda Classic has ascended into one of the early season barometers on the PGA Tour with seven of the top 10 players in the world in attendance this week, and none of those superstars was better than Rory McIlroy on Thursday. If the Florida swing is the start of a month of Masters prep, as so many of those top players articulated this week, then McIlroy is firmly on track for a rebound season and return to form at the game’s biggest events.

It was at this event last year that McIlroy hit the low point of his nascent career, essentially giving up and walking off the course after an ugly seven hole start to his round. It was the third straight event at the beginning of a lost season of struggles, and Rory had had enough, withdrawing and later blaming issues with his wisdom teeth as the reason for backing out. At the time, Rory was struggling to adapt to his new Nike equipment and also going through a set of off-the-course distractions both with his management team and in his personal life. And that’s how a two-time major winner in his early 20s with a huge new Nike endorsement deal storms off the course.

McIlroy promptly apologized for the walk-off the next week at Doral, but he was forced to re-hash the ugliness of last year’s Honda before teeing it up this week. What we got on Thursday, however, was the vintage McIlroy, one of the best ball-strikers in the world and the player from two years ago, who held off Tiger Woods and won this event to move into the top spot in the world rankings.

Rory was flawless in the opening round 63 at PGA National, consistently rated as one of the hardest courses all year on the tour. It’s a layout full of hazards and crooked numbers, where rounds in the mid-to-low 60s just don’t happen unless you’re one of the top talents in the game and you’re in form. McIlroy was perfect tee-to-green, rolling in seven birdies and making no bogeys to get to sole possession of the lead at 7-under.

When Rory is playing his best, it’s those iron approach shots into the green that are so on point and leave no doubt that’s he one of the top two to three talents going right now. An approach shot into No. 10, one of the hardest holes on the course, exemplified that on Thursday, as McIlroy striped one into the center of the green and converted a birdie chance to start a silly inward 30.

He backed up that kind of iron play with some streaky putting, including a 45-foot bomb which he hit on the very next hole. Three birdies started a back nine that was capped with back-to-back red numbers at No. 17, the treacherous par-3 finish to the three-hole “Bear Trap,” and the par-5 18th, where he got up-and-down smoothly from a green side bunker to claim solo first.

If Rory keeps this form up, even without dipping into the mid-60s on the scorecard, no one will catch him. Tiger Woods, his Nike comrade, is a full eight shots back and that margin will probably be more once the world No. 1 gets to first tee Friday afternoon. Here’s the full leaderboard after round 1 in Palm Beach: