A non-conforming driver in one USPGA – a non-performing driver in the next.

Do not talk to Rory McIlroy about turning up at the season’s second major as the reigning Masters champion looking to go two from two and set up the possibility of a career grand slam, because once again his supposedly favourite club recoiled and smashed his challenge firmly in the ankles.

For the first time in his 19-year career, in any tournament, McIlroy finished with four straight bogeys and on four over is seven off the lead shared by a group that so ominously includes world No 1 Scottie Scheffler.

McIlroy was asked how he played. His answer was succinct but by his standards, particularly off the tee, correct. ‘S---,’ he replied. Nobody had to look far for the reason for his four-lettered display.

Last year at this tournament, McIlroy was thrown off track by his driver being deemed illegal – because of deterioration of the club face – on the eve of the championship.

The world No 2 is determined that this wayward version will not necessarily mean the end of his attempt at a third Wanamaker Trophy this time around. He decamped to the range for a three-hour session and went there with purpose.

“I need to sort it out,” McIlroy said as he began his quest for golfing alchemy. Never mind Scheffler and all those on top. The 74 leaves McIlroy facing a battle simply to make the cut. “The driver is all over the place,” he said.

Credit to him for fronting up to the media after such a brutal climax – Bryson DeChambeau refused to do so after his 76.

McIlroy was frank as he invariably is and perhaps a little too candid for the PGA of America moderator who, as custom dictates, asked the opening question.

“Rory, how would you describe your opening round?” he asked. “S---,” McIlroy replied.

McIlroy was invited to expand, but he resisted saying “really s---” which would have been, as in truth, what was written all across his stats sheet. He hit only five of the 14 fairways and with approach shots as demanding as these at Aronimink that adds up to disastrous.

What made it worse was that these fairways are generous. Whisper it in polite clubhouse circles, but McIlroy has the dreaded two-way miss off the tee.

“I’m just not driving the ball well enough,” he said. “It’s been a problem all year. I miss it right, and then I want to try to correct it, and then I’ll overdo it, and then I’ll miss it left. It’s a bit of back and forth. So that’s pretty frustrating, especially when I pride myself on driving the ball well.”

McIlroy stressed that the blister on the small toe of his right foot that cut short his practice round on Tuesday was not a hindrance. The damaging pustule was in his bag wearing a head cover. “Coming in here, I honestly thought I’d figured it out,” he said. “I hit it well on Sunday at Quail Hollow, and then hit it good at home on Monday. Obviously I had to curtail the practice round Tuesday, but I hit it decent yesterday. But once I get under the gun, it just seems like it starts to go a little bit wayward on me.”

In contrast, Scheffler missed only one fairway. The defending champion also putted fantastically in his 67. It is not just worrying for the rest but is surely petrifying for the bookmakers.

Playing alongside McIlroy, Jordan Spieth was also blighted by late bogeys, although the American’s 69 put him in a promising position from which to launch his mission to emulate McIlroy and become just the seventh player in history to complete the career grand slam.

“I played better than I scored, which is frustrating because you want to get the most out of your round,” he said. “But it is also a good thing.”

The other member of the marquee three-ball, Jon Rahm, was actually on the same mark as McIlroy with those four holes remaining, but courtesy of a chip-in on the eighth (the group started on the 10th) and a birdie on the par-five ninth, the Spaniard swaggered in with a 69.

The highlight of his round, however, was an eagle on the second, where he holed a wedge from 101 yards.

“What can I say? It was a phenomenal shot,” Rahm said. “It was funny. We were on the 16th or 17th when we heard somebody had holed out on the 11th. I thought, ‘Man, how often you see hole-outs in majors on TV and how rarely I’ve ever seen one in person’. Then about an hour later I get to do it myself.”

Rahm was happy but also contrite after an incident on the seventh. “I got a flier on my second shot that went long,” he said. “Just out of frustration, I tried to make an air swing, just over the grass, and I wasn’t looking, took a divot, and unfortunately, I hit a volunteer.

“Unfortunately it hit him in the shoulder and then the face. I couldn’t feel any worse. That’s why I was there apologising. I need to somehow track him down to give him a present because that’s inexcusable. Whether it was my intention or not, it was just not good.”

England Dan’s Brown was the golfer who caused those cheers Rahm heard. Using a 50-degree wedge from 106 yards, he spun his ball into the cup off the slope for his own eagle. It took the world No 102 – who created a stir at the Open two years ago when shooting a 65 to lead in the first round on what was his major debut – to the leaderboard, before he signed off on a 68.

Brown, the 31-year-old from North Yorkshire, could sell that two on that 425-yarder for a lot of dollars because the 11th has the most treacherous green on a layout packed with severely sloped putting surfaces.

DeChambeau revealed as much when he barely tapped his 30-footer from just over the back and watched in despair as it ran 60 feet past the cup. The organisers have to be careful because if they allow it to dry it out too much, it could verge on the unplayable.

As it was, the pin positions were tough enough to make this test more like a US Open than a US PGA.

The resurgent German Martin Kaymer also shot a 67 as did his countryman Stephan Jaeger. Australian Min Woo Lee, South African Aldrich Potgieter and Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune.

Another South African in Garrick Higgo would also be on three under, but for the two-shot penalty he received for being almost a minute late for his tee-time. He displayed guts to card a 69, but nonsensical behaviour to moan about the sanction afterwards.

“I was there on time, but the rule is, if you’re one second late, you’re late,” he said. “So if you think about it, I was there on time, if you know what I mean.”

No, we did not know what he meant. Every pro knows – and if not they should – that if they are a single minute past their tee-time – which in Higgo’s case was 7.18am – then they will be penalised.

His caddie urged him to hurry up and it was his fault and his fault only. This farcical situation cannot be pinned on the Rules of Golf. For once.