SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- When Rory McIlroy crested the steep hill that leads to the ninth green at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and finished with a second straight bogey for a 1-under 69 on Thursday, any frustration he might have had was faint.
After all, the last time McIlroy played a first round of the U.S. Open at this venue, he shot 80 and went on to miss the cut.
"I think with the conditions today, anything under par or anything around even par is a good score," McIlroy said after his round. "It was a day to really just keep yourself in the tournament and not shoot yourself out of it, which is exactly what I did eight years ago here."
In 2018, a 29-year-old McIlroy bounced back with a second-round 70, but the damage had been done. He left Shinnecock Hills with a third straight missed cut at the U.S. Open and headed to the Travelers Championship. It was there that he had a sudden realization.
"I remember feeling so much in my comfort zone going to [Travelers] and thinking to myself, 'I've got this backwards,'" he said. "I should be in my comfort zone at Shinnecock and not here."
By the end of 2018, as he flew back from Dubai, McIlroy said his realization led him to write a clear directive in his journal.
"I wrote in it that from 2019 going forward, I'm going to build my game to compete at the major championships and excel at the toughest tests that we have," McIlroy said.
Since 2018, McIlroy has done just that, especially at the U.S. Open. In six of the past seven years, Mcllroy has finished inside the top 10. Last year at Oakmont was his worst finish since 2018 as he stumbled into a T-19 finish.
"I needed to change my mindset," McIlroy said. "It was an effort really ... like it hasn't looked as if I've went and done a rebuild of my game, but it's felt like it in terms of the way I approach the game and the value I place on certain shots and certain skills within the game."
Despite the two bogeys to finish Thursday's round, McIlroy displayed exactly the kind of evolution he has had at this event for most of his round -- grinding for tough pars, flighting the ball and putting himself in the right positions to make birdies as the wind whipped throughout the grounds.
The highlight came on the par-5 fifth hole, where he followed up a 396-yard drive with a pitching wedge from 192 yards that landed like a feather and led to an eagle. On the day, he gained 2.73 strokes around the green, which ranked second after the first wave.
"Working on the things that you need to do well to excel at [majors], which is flighting the ball, hitting your numbers, wedge play, short game, putting," McIlroy said. "Which is all the stuff that I feel like I've improved over the last few years."
Since McIlroy won his U.S. Open in 2011 at Congressional Country Club, the USGA setups and venues for the major have evolved, too, getting tougher in some ways but also demanding more thoughtfulness and a kind of strategy that McIlroy has embraced.
After 18 holes, McIlroy isn't just in position to make the cut and erase the memories of 2018; he is set up well to contend come Sunday.