Rory’s stress factor
McIlroy on his bid to join Augusta greats
If the Masters is golf ’s great cathedral then Rory McIlroy strode bravely into its confession box here yesterday. “I’m a complete p---k in the week leading up to Augusta,” he said.
One might suspect that this should be the happiest weeks of his life, what with his wedding to Erica Stoll looming later this month. Yet at the moment he cannot relax. And the reason why should be clear, even to us amateur psychoanalysts. Yet he has revealed it anyway, in admitting the first word he thinks of whenever Augusta is mentioned. “Stress,” McIlroy replied.
At 27, McIlroy is the only European ever to have won three different majors; and one of only five golfers – along with Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson – to have won three different majors in the past 40 years. And McIlroy cannot forget what happened to him at Augusta when he was 21. He led by four shots going into the final round and everyone expected him to win his first major. McIlroy shot 80.
Since then, the pressure has built, as every trinket around the neck has only increased the burden. “Great playing to win the US Open/Open/USPGA/Ryder Cup, Rory, but when are you going to win the Masters?” And what has made it yet more heavy to carry has been his long-stated intention that Augusta was the scene of glory in his childhood dreams. That is because of 1997 and the milestone victory of his inspiration and now friend, Tiger Woods.
“It really is very clear in my memory, especially the last round, which I could go through shot by shot now if I have to,” McIlroy told
The Daily Telegraph. “The next morning, all I wanted to do was to hit balls and try to be my hero.”
McIlroy still craves to emulate Woods, but now there is an entire mountain of motivation. The career grand slam beckons and the right to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Woods in the pantheon.
In the Ulsterman’s mind, these legends will be ganging up on him, together with that ambition which has burned within since he was a toddler. For seven days only, this all conspires to turn Tiger’s golden cub into the grouchy bear he most definitely is not.
“No, I am probably not much fun to be around, but they [his friends and family] understand and know that. It’s a stressful situation,” he said.
If Georgia is forever on his mind then this revered layout is under his skin. There have been chances since 2011, but chances he has blown asunder into the azaleas. A 77 when he finished eighth in 2014; a fifth in 2015 when he conceded seven shots to Jordan Spieth after a first round 71; and perhaps, most painfully, last year, he was only one behind leader Spieth and in the final group with him, and shot another Masters-wrecking 77. “It’s always something,” McIlroy said.
The point is that like all the most captivating romantic tragedies, McIlroy loves Augusta, but hates what it does to him. He is determined not let it seduce him and spit him out, and apart from that most natural of desires for a son to play with his father in golf’s most cherished playground, that is why he returns here whenever he can.
McIlroy made the visit with Gerry last month, along with two businessmen from Seminole – another ultra-exclusive club situated near his Florida home – and although his companions must have believed the sporting genius among them was here for the giggles and kicks as well as a reconnaissance mission, he was, in fact, here for a subtle slaying of ghosts.
“The more comfortable you can feel around Augusta the better,” McIlroy told Golf Digest. “For me, that’s what it’s all about. Going up for trips with dad and friends and just messing around. That makes it feel way easier for me, because I always associate Augusta with stressful situations and shots.
“If you can get up there and make it feel as if you’re just playing another round of golf at another golf course… well. Like I was playing and I’m just messing around playing different shots and thinking, ‘Why can’t I do this during the Masters?’ ”
Of course, McIlroy can do it, but everything in his major odyssey suggests he must do it from the first round and dominate thereafter and although the rains, which
will soften Augusta, will play to his strengths, his task has been made more arduous by other factors.
McIlroy likes to storm out early and stamp his indelible mark, but he has been drawn alongside Japan’s Hideto Taniwara and the brilliant Spaniard Jon Rahm, in the third-last starting spot of 1.41pm, on prime-time US TV.
And there are winds forecast, with gusts of 25mph predicted in the late afternoon. One of McIlroy’s many paradoxes is that a boy from the links-filled terrain of Northern Ireland is not at his best when his curls are ruffling. Yet he does seem to flourish when his back is against the wall, and that certainly has been the case after playing a round of golf with President Trump in February. “Would I do it again?,” he said yesterday. “I might think twice now after the backlash I received.”
It is his own backlash which worries him most, however. He wants that Green Jacket; he could even claim to need it. There is no doubt his loved ones would also welcome it. Especially for that week leading up to Augusta.