BEAR TO DREAM
Nicklaus: Confident Rory can finally win his Green Jacket
JACK NICKLAUS says Rory Mcilroy has the form and the fearlessness to claim the Masters and complete his career Grand Slam.
The Ulsterman won his third different Major at the 2014 Open and today embarks on his fifth attempt to win the only one still missing from his CV. In pursuit of greatness, Mcilroy has changed his schedule, his diet, and taken up meditation and juggling over the last year.
And the results have followed. The world No.3 has finished in the top 10 in all seven of his events on the PGA Tour this season, and won the Players’ Championship. And Nicklaus, winner of a record six Masters titles, reckons he deserves to arrive at the first Major of the year as favourite.
“Rory would be my first choice – the one who has got the best chance of winning,” said the Golden Bear (above, with Mcilroy). “He is playing as well as anybody in the game. He should be full of confidence coming out of the Players’ Championship.”
Only five men – Nicklaus, Gene Sarazen, Ben
Hogan, Gary Player and Tiger Woods – have won all four Majors. Mcilroy, who infamously blew a final-round lead here in 2011 (left), has appeared burdened by the weight of history in recent years. Playing in the final group with Patrick Reed last year, he shot a 74 to finish tied for fifth. “I don’t think there is extra pressure because he is going for the career Slam,” Nicklaus said. “It never bothered me. It never entered my mind. And I don’t think it will for him.”
Mcilroy, who turns 30 next month, may never get a better chance to win here.
His successes so far have been remarkable but few would have predicted he would not win another Major for five years after his golden summer of 2014.
Francesco Molinari’s coach Denis Pugh said: “When you get beaten up at Augusta like Rory, it works two ways. It can inspire you to do well in the future or it can give you the Greg Norman syndrome and you are never going to get that Green Jacket.
“I think Rory is too good a player not to win here. I don’t believe we have seen the best of him. If he has got four, I think he has got four more in there and one of them will be a Green Jacket. Put him down to win, along with Francesco.”