• Northern Irishman shoots 71 after double bogey at 1st
• 'My patience paid off, I didn't try to force it'
Rory McIlroy began the Masters of 2012 as he had ended it a year earlier. Which, suffice to say, is not the way he wanted it.
The young Northern Irishman will be reminded of his 2011 Sunday capitulation at this venue until the moment – and it is not unreasonable to regard this as inevitable, given his talent, and despite the nuances of golf – he claims a Green Jacket.
Any attempt to banish memories of 12 months ago hardly started in promising fashion; McIlroy carved his tee shot straight right from the 1st tee, with a double-bogey six the consequence of that aberration. And to think, for three and a half rounds a year ago, he seemed completely and utterly in love with this famous old venue.
By close of play, McIlroy had been upstaged by Lee Westwood, his former stablemate at International Sports Management. McIlroy is four shots adrift of Westwood, in touch but for now in the Englishman's shadow. It is too early for despondency, even if McIlroy will reflect on a day when the spark he can routinely produce on the big stage never really appeared until the closing two holes.
Back-to-back birdie putts at least sent him home with a smile. "It wasn't the best start, not the start I would have liked to get off too, but I steadied the ship," McIlroy said. "It was nice to have those two birdies coming in there to only leave me four off the lead with 54 holes still to play.
"I think my patience paid off, I didn't try to force things. I'm coming off the golf course a lot more pleased about my round than I would have been if I had just finished with two fours."
McIlroy had instantly recovered from that six at the start, making birdie at the par five 2nd before a run of five consecutive pars. Birdies at the 8th and 9th brought him to one-under and in a position to challenge the leaders, more so because the thunderstorms predicted for Thursday afternoon had failed to materialise.
Yet the 22-year-old failed to take advantage of par-five opportunities on the back nine. McIlroy's ball found the water in front of the 13th green – a dropped shot resulted from that – with the US Open champion missing a decent birdie chance two holes later.
By then it appeared simple a case of McIlroy not playing himself out of the competition rather than making an early chase for it. Others, Tiger Woods and most notably Henrik Stenson, had, after all, stumbled in the closing holes.
Instead, McIlroy rolled in a fine putt from 15 feet to pick up a shot at the 17th. The faint acknowledgement of the galleries' applause hinted he regarded this as a struggle. Better was to come; after hitting his approach to the 18th slightly long, and on to the fringe of the green, he smartly holed out for a three. "I've been waiting for this day to come around for a couple of weeks; it was nice when I finally got here," he said. "I am pretty pleased with how I started, it could have been a little better but I'll take 71 and hopefully that's a good score to build on."