World No. 1 Rory McIlroy continues to struggle after posting a continuing disappointing one over par 73 on the first day of the WGC – Cadillac Championship in suburban Miami.

McIlroy ended the first day already trailing seven shots behind Nike stablemate, Tiger Woods who birdied the last in a six under par 66 and later thanking good friend and Ryder Cup colleague, Steve Stricker for a putting tip on the eve of the $8.75m event.

While McIlroy did birdie his 16th and 17th holes the real story of his game was that for only his fourth straight completed stroke-play round this new season and McIlroy has again failed to break par.

McIlroy’s first day on the Trump-owned course was a bitter cocktail on a 10th hole eagle (the 1st on the course), three birdies but also five bogeys including back-to-back dropped shots at the 13th and 14th holes and then at the second and third.

A check of his opening nine holes showed McIlroy managed to hit just three fairways and then only four greens in regulation while he had already taken 15 putts.

“It was a bit of a struggle to be honest,” said McIlroy stating the obvious.

“I hit some good shots, hit some not-so-good shots. As I’ve been saying all week, this is a work in progress and I’m working at it and I’m staying patient.

World No. 1 Rory McIlroy has still not broken par in any stroke play this year as he shoots a 73 on day one in Miami. (Photo – Fran Caffrey/www.golffile.ie)

“I’ve got another three rounds here to try and work on it a bit more and shoot a few good scores and we’ll see what happens.

“But it was nice to sneak in a couple birdies on the last three holes and make it look somewhat respectable, even though everyone seems to be going pretty low out there.”

In McIlroy’s first showing in 2013 he posted a pair of 75s in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship while he headed to the defence of his Honda Classic shooting an opening score of a level par 70.

And for a fourth occasion the 23-year old began a round with a bogey as was the scenario when McIlroy, who was commencing his Cadillac round from the 10th, dropped shots at his fourth and fifth holes before the first birdie of his round at his sixth hole.

McIlroy walked from the Blue Monster at 4.25pm local time already trailing seven shots behind 14-time Major winning Woods and having watched the current World No. 2 exhibit why he’s tamed the famed Blue Monster on six occasions in capturing 16 of 47 WGCs staged since 1999.

Woods shot a superb six under par 66 to snatch the clubhouse lead in the $8.75m and with fellow playing partner, Luke Donald shooting a two under par 70.

“It warmed-up and the ball was starting to fly this morning,” he said.

“But while the wind was starting to get up, this was probably the easier wind and we got to play some of the harder holes downwind including the par 5s and that made a big difference.

“However whatever Strick’s (Stricker) says I am going to do as that dude is one of the best putters that has ever lived.  He knows my stroke really well and basically he got me into a position when I was putting like I was at Torrey Pines.

“But you would think that it has to blow here some time andI don’t think we are going to get all four days with this wind we’ve had today, so it’s got to switch at some time coming in from the east and if it does that’s when this golf course will become more difficult.

“However today was about as easy as this place gets and consequently that’s why there’s about 50 guys even par or better.”