Rory McIlroy avoided the press following a challenging first round at the PGA Championship, amid speculation that his recent "turmoil" due to winning the Masters could have affected his performance.

McIlroy achieved the career grand slam last month at Augusta and headed into Quail Hollow as the clear frontrunner based on his history at the venue of his inaugural PGA Tour victory. Just this week he claimed to be the "same person" and not "burdened" also taking a firm stance on Bryson DeChambeau's remarks about their final round pairing.

Yet, he recorded his poorest round at the Charlotte, North Carolina course since 2011, hitting a mere four fairways from the tee in a disappointing three-over par 74. This came shortly after Scottie Scheffler stated that his own tee accuracy surpasses even that of golf legends like Tiger Woods.

Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley pondered on Sky Sports: "There's been a lot of turmoil this last month - all positive turmoil with his success [at the Masters].

"He's had a lot of fun, let's just say, comes here he's in great form - I did a couple of practice rounds with him - and a really happy place. Of course he is, he won the Grand Slam - a lifelong achievement for every single one of these players.

"But is that a great place to then reset? Is he in that place mentally? It's really difficult when you're coming off such a high. Enjoying all of the success of the last month maybe is not conducive to putting him in the right mindset.

"Nonetheless, he's not out of this tournament. He'll come at it again, and maybe now he's had a bad score that kickstarts him over the next couple days."

McIlroy, paired with Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, saw all three top-ranked players suffer double-bogeys on the notorious 16th hole.

Scheffler, who managed to recover and finish two-under, humorously remarked: "I kept the honor with making a double on a hole, and I think that will probably be the first and last time I do that in my career!"

However, despite recognising the humour, he couldn't help but express his irritation at the 'mud balls', which seemed to exact a heavy toll on him and Schauffele on the contentious hole.

He vented his frustration, stating: "When you think about the purest test of golf, I don't personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for.

"In golf, there's enough luck throughout a 72-hole tournament that I don't think the story should be whether or not the ball is played up or down. When I look at golf tournaments, I want the purest, fairest test of golf, and in my opinion maybe the ball today should have been played up."