Only Rory can write his story at Augusta

Despite making changes this year, a Masters victory still eludes McIlroy. But whatever happens, it will be his tale to tell

The hardest thing to achieve in the game of golf is win the career grand slam. We talk about five players having done it, but the first four that did it, from 1934 to 1966 … I’d say Gene Sarazen didn’t know he did it, because the Masters wasn’t a Major championship when he won it in 1935.

Ben Hogan, you could argue the same thing … probably didn’t know he did it because, again, the Masters hadn’t ascended to the level of Major championship. You can really only argue that two did it before ’66 but since then — and we’re talking about 58 years — just one player has managed to win the career grand slam.

But I would argue in the whole landscape of professional golf, nobody plays with more pressure on him. There is no bigger story in the world of professional golf than Rory with the possibility of trying to win the Masters. It’s right there. He can grab it. He said it today in the media centre, ‘I have all the skills. I have all the talent. I can play well around here.’ And it’s just right there.

Brandel Chamblee, ‘Live from the Masters’

What happened? That’s the job. It has always been the job. It’s not rocket science. You are not a gynaecologist. Find the story. Choose the words. You’re a journalist. Tell us what happened. But what if you can’t?

What if your mind is completely scrambled? What if your thoughts are a jumbled mess? What if your deadline is looming and you’re in trouble. Bleeding. Dying. Because nothing’s happening. You can’t write. NOT. ONE. WORD.

Twelve months ago.

It’s Friday evening at Augusta after the second round of the Masters and you return to the media centre to a text message from your boss: “What are you thinking for a piece?” “Rory,” I replied.

There wasn’t much thinking involved.

I’d been studying him all week. The practice rounds. His press conference. The bounce in his stride when he’d played the Par 3 competition. His sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, was in town — they’d had dinner the night before. And the entourage — so many family and friends.

His parents, Gerry and Rosie. His wife, Erica and her mother, Bonnie. His ‘team’ — Michael Bannon and Donal Casey and Seán O’Flaherty and Niall O’Connor and Paul McVeigh and Harry Diamond’s brother, Dan.

There was Neil Hughes, one of his first sponsors; Wes Edens, the billionaire owner of Aston Villa; Bing Crosby’s son, Nathaniel, his neighbour in Florida; and two former amateur teammates — Connor Doran and Aaron O’Callaghan — had made the trip from Ireland compelled by the sense that this would be the year. Then Rory had missed the cut. Tell us what happened? That was the story. That was all I had to do, but Friday night became Saturday morning and my mind kept returning to the previous afternoon: the par on 1; his mistakes on 2 and 3; the pars on 4 and 5; his mistakes on 6 and 7; the pars on 8 and 9 and 10; his mistake on 11; the conversation with Michael.

We were watching from the 11th fairway when Rory’s ball found the pond. I turned to him, incredulous. “What’s the story, Michael?” I said. “What the f **k is going on?”

Because Michael wasn’t just Rory’s coach, he was almost a second dad. “I don’t know,” he replied. So what chance did I have?

Six months later. We’re sitting in the kitchen of Rory’s home in Florida talking about the Ryder Cup when a slight tangent takes us to the Masters. “Even now I’m talking to Seán [O’Flaherty] about the lead-up to Augusta,” he says. “He’s saying, ‘Do you really want to play the Par 3?’

“And I’m like, ‘The Par 3 is one of the best parts of the week! Why would I not?’ Yeah, maybe if you don’t have kids you could give it a miss but I’m not doing it for myself. I’m doing it for Poppy so she can run around with Iris [Lowry] and Ivy [Lowry] and Frankie [Fleetwood].”

“Maybe you should be doing it for yourself,” I say.

“Well I’m doing it for myself too, because it’s fun.”

“It’s good for you?”

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t hinder you?”

“No, it doesn’t hinder me at all — if anything it should help in terms of getting your mind away from what you’re trying to do.”

“It didn’t help this year?”

“It didn’t hurt this year, there was … that was not the reason why I didn’t play well.”

“I walked down the 11th with Michael on the Friday,” I say. “And asked him what the f **k was going on. He said, ‘I don’t know’.”

“Yeah.”

[Long pause]

“You’ve had some pretty crushing rounds on that course. Where did that one rate?”

“I don’t know it was just … confusion or … because I was playing so well going into it. I played great in the practice rounds, sort of hung in there on Thursday, and then Friday, I just … like, there’s been a lot of other tournaments where I felt pretty bad about where my game is, and I was able to figure it out but that was just …

“I went in there thinking, ‘Jeez, I’m playing really well. This could be the year.’ That’s not the right way to be thinking about it. So yeah, I think confusion or … it was more to do with mentality rather than physical.

I was swinging it fine, but how I approached it mentally was not where it should have been.”

He made some changes for this year. Erica and Poppy and Rosie didn’t travel to Augusta, and he stayed in a rented house with the inner circle: Gerry and Harry and Seán and Niall and Paul. He didn’t arrive until Tuesday, skipped the Par 3 and kept his engagements with the media to a minimum.

On Friday, he was seven off the lead and fighting to stay in the tournament when he stood on the 11th fairway and watched his second find the water again. Same old story, some might say.

He bottled it.

Choked.

It’s in his head.

Rory will never win the Masters. But it’s not a story I’m going to write. I remember in 1996, there was a piece about Greg Norman in the Sunday Independent, and how he had blown the Masters. Here’s how it ends:

“If only Norman had started as well last Sunday when, after three remarkable rounds, he stood up on the first tee and drove his ball into the trees. That’s when he lost it. Right there. That’s when the scars opened and the haemorrhaging started.

“He needed to put that ball on the fairway. He needed to start with a solid par. He needed to send a strong and forceful message to the one person on the golf course who was capable of denying him ‘his’ Masters. It had nothing to do with Nick Faldo. He needed to send that message to himself.”

And here’s the point: the gobshite who wrote the piece had watched it on TV. He knew nothing about the game, had never been to a tournament. But I’ve been to a few now.

Golf is hard. Really hard. Rory is the best we’ve ever had. And the story might just be that he never wins the Masters, or it might just be that he does, but it’s his story.

So I’ll let him choose the words.

The gobshite who wrote the piece had watched it on TV. He knew nothing about the game