• Memorial Tournament, Round One

Magic McIlroy storms into Memorial lead

Luke Donald's round improved on the back nine © Getty Images

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Luke Donald shrugged off a slow start to life as world No. 1 as Rory McIlroy blazed to the top of the leaderboard at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio.

McIlroy reached the turn in 34, but it was on the back nine that his round really caught fire, as three straight birdies between six and eight saw him draw level with Chris Riley on six-under, and he narrowly missed a birdie putt at the last to take the outright lead.

"I played really well out there," McIlroy said. "I have been hitting the ball really well but the difference was today I kept myself in it with a few good up-and-downs on the back nine and just kept myself in there and it was nice to birdie a few holes coming in to shoot a 66."

Donald, the newly crowned world No. 1, who is coming off the back of victory at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth last week, found himself in trouble after double bogeying the 18th, which saw him reach the turn at two-over.

Donald has not finished a round above par since the Honda Classic in March, and he roared back with four straight birdies on the back nine to keep in touch, four shots off the pace.

"It was a good finish," Donald said. "I played pretty solid all the way around, just the mistakes I made were careless short-game mistakes, just not very sharp around the greens.

"It's probably the first tournament I've played where we've had some rough all year, so I struggled to get used to that. But I'm happy with the way I played the last nine.

"I felt better than I thought I would. It's going to be a tough week, obviously, to balance the physical side. I certainly don't have as much energy as I'd like, but to be honest I felt pretty decent today considering."

Despite signing off with a birdie, Donald's playing partner Phil Mickelson could only manage a 72.

Ricky Fowler is two shots off the pace after carding a four-under 68, level with Dustin Johnson who also impressed in his opening round.

Defending champion Justin Rose recovered from a poor start to card a one-under 71. Rose failed to hit the fairway on every one of his first nine tee-shots, but two birdies in his last five holes helped salvage his round.

"I hit every shot left for about the first six holes but began to figure it out slowly and just battled well today. Certainly not an electric start, but not a bad start, either," Rose said. "Today could have quite easily been two or three over and that would have been a disappointing start to the round, but I can build on this for the rest of the week."

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