Scottie Scheffler disputed questions about his driving accuracy after his opening round at The Open at Royal Portrush.
Scheffler ended the day one shot adrift of leaders Matt Fitzpatrick, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Harris English, Jacob Skov Olesen and Haotong Li on three-under.
But that was not the story of the American's round. Scheffler struggled on the tee box, hitting just three fairways, though his brilliance was able to get him out of trouble.
The world number one finished with a flourish, carding back-to-back birdies on 16 and 17, though he was quick to explain that he believed he drove well on Thursday.
"I actually thought I drove it pretty good. I don't know what you guys are seeing," Scheffler said.
"When it's raining sideways, it's actually, believe it or not, not that easy to get the ball in the fairway. Thank you, guys, all for pointing that out."
His wayward tee shots led to bogies in his round, though Scheffler credited his putting with keeping him on the first page of the leaderboard after struggling to gain strokes on the greens at the Scottish Open last week.
"Putting is one of those deals where, especially when there's a little bit of activity on the greens, you can hit a lot of good putts that don't go in," Scheffler said.
"I'm trying to do my best to be perfect every week, but some weeks the putts just aren't going in, and I did a good job battling last week."
Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, scrambled to an opening-round 70 to leave him in contention for the title on home turf, six years on from his struggles at the same venue.
His opening tee shot in 2019 saw him go out of bounds, registering a quadruple-bogey on that hole on his way to 79 before going on to miss the cut.
Though he missed the fairway this time around, McIlroy was able to limit the damage to a bogey, recovering well to get himself to three-under by the 10th hole.
"I didn't feel like I was walking into the unknown this time around, where last time I hadn't experienced that before. I hadn't played an Open at home," McIlroy said.
"I didn't know how I was going to feel. I didn't know the reaction I was going to get, where this time I had a better idea of what was going to be coming my way."
Not helped by the changing conditions in Northern Ireland, he went through the next four holes in three over, but sank birdies at 16 and 17 to leave him one-under.
"I felt like, once we turned for home, like played 10 and turned back and played 11, the wind picked up a little bit, and it just became that little bit more difficult," McIlroy said.
"It was a tough enough day, especially either chopping out of the rough or out of the fairway bunkers most of the time. So to shoot under par was a good effort."
