Eagle helps McIlroy share lead with Rahm, Burns

WASHINGTON • Rory McIlroy's late eagle lifted him into a tie for the BMW Championship's first-round lead on Thursday, alongside world No. 1 Jon Rahm and American Sam Burns.

Rahm, the defending champion in the second of three events in the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup play-offs, had eight birdies in his eight-under 64 at Caves Valley Golf Club in Baltimore, Maryland.

Burns also went bogey-free on the rain-softened layout, his eight birdies including four in a row from the 11th through the 14th.

McIlroy teed off late and joined the leaders with a rare eagle at the tough par-five 16th, where his 285-yard second shot from the fairway left him an 11-footer.

"It's as good as I can hit a three-wood," the Northern Irishman said of his approach. The eagle was especially gratifying, he said, after playing par-fives "very poorly" in recent weeks.

The four-time Major winner added seven birdies and one bogey. He hit 13 of 14 fairways in regulation as he matched his lowest round of the season - a 64 in the final round of the Phoenix Open back in February.

His four birdies on the front nine included a 30-foot putt at the seventh hole - an energiser for a player who admitted he was feeling the effects of a busy schedule that included the British Open and Tokyo Olympics last month and the weather-disrupted Northern Trust that ended on Monday.

Rahm can head into the season-ending Tour Championship atop the standings with his first successful PGA Tour title defence.

The Spaniard's third place at the Northern Trust was the latest oddity in his season, one in which he captured his first Major at the US Open but also had to withdraw from Memorial and the Olympics after testing positive for Covid-19 on two separate occasions.

"Be a goldfish," he quipped of the secret to his resilience, quoting sitcom hero Ted Lasso.

"(A goldfish) has a 10-second memory. I played great golf last week, just a couple of bad swings down the stretch, and that's the most important thing to remember."

Only the top 30 in the standings will move on to the season-ending Tour Championship next week.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE