G-Mac: Let’s get jumping in June
Everything in the garden is rosy for Rory - a late Masters gives his game time to bloom GOLF: ACTION MAYBE COMING SOON
RORY McILROY believes the Masters being staged in November will finally help him win a Green Jacket and complete his career Grand Slam.
The world No.1 has played at Augusta in April 11 times, blowing a four-shot lead in the final round in 2011.
Since winning the 2014 Open, McIlroy has the added pressure of hunting the only Major to evade him. None of the previous five players with career Grand Slams needed more than three attempts to land the final leg.
Now 30, McIlroy would have been favourite at the Masters last week, had coronavirus not forced its postponement, after a solid start to the season saw him return to the top of the rankings for the first time in five years.
“I feel there’s anticipation going to Augusta, the first big event of the year,” said the fourtime Major champion. “There’s all this hype.
“I don’t think it will feel like that this year. I think it will feel a little bit different, which I’m looking forward to.
“It’s going to be a different Masters, and personally, selfishly, maybe that’s what I need to get the jacket.” The Masters is scheduled for November 12-15, with the Tour Championship, the US Open and the Ryder Cup all in September. McIlroy plays better in the second half of the year – nine of his 18 career PGA Tour titles were in August or later. He has three wins in November, including his last victory at the WGCHSBC Champions last year. Six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus said: “He seems to play better in the fall. He’s won the Tour Championship a couple times. Played in Atlanta, very similar 2009: T20
2010: missed cut 2011: T15 2012: T40 2013: T25 2014: T8 2015: 4 2016: T10 2017: T7 2018: T5 2019: T21
2020: ?
2011 2012, 2014 2014 conditions. I think this scheduling will be to Rory’s favour.”
McIlroy, speaking on Nike Golf ’s Instagram Live feed, added: “November is going to be different. It’s going to be cold. The course can play very long. It plays long already, but it could play very long.
“The greens might not be as fast as they usually are in April.”
The PGA Tour meets the player’s advisory council today to discuss plans to restart the season “with or without fans”. Players would be given at least three weeks’ notice.
GRAEME McDOWELL reckons the PGA Tour could restart in June behind closed doors.
The coronavirus has forced the cancellation of The Open in July and the postponement of the three American Majors until later in the year.
Former US Open champion McDowell (above) said: “I’m thinking the middle of June is a realistic restart date – with or without crowds, who knows? You watch the news and hear a lot of positive things, then you watch it again and hear a lot of negative things.
“There’s a danger of us jumping back into normal life only to get re-infected so it’s impossible to tell.”
DOUG SANDERS “lived the dream” and should not be remembered only for his nightmare miss at the 1970 Open, his friend Tony Jacklin said yesterday.
The three-times divorced American (below) was dubbed “the peacock of the fairways” and became an honorary member of the Rat Pack, with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. But Sanders, who has died aged 86, will go down in golfing history for missing a 30-inch downhill par putt to win the Claret Jug on the final hole at St Andrews.
Sanders, who had already finished runner-up in three Majors, lost an 18-hole play-off to Jack Nicklaus the following day and never went close again.
“They still ask me if I ever think about that putt,” Sanders (centre, with wife Scotty) said once. “I tell them it sometimes doesn’t cross my mind for a full five minutes.”
It still ranks as one of the most notorious misses in golfing history.
Jacklin, who met Sanders (with Nicklaus at the play-off, bottom) every Masters until the American was struck by Alzheimer’s disease, said: “He will obviously be remembered for missing the putt at St Andrews but there was so much more to him than that. He was larger than life, a real flamboyant personality, a raconteur. He knew all the Rat Pack. He lived a dream.
“When you were working on your game, he would be going off with not one but two women – one on each arm!
“He gambled, he didn’t mind putting his money where his mouth was, and he was the Peacock. He went to amazing lengths to co-ordinate his outfits.
“He knew that he attracted attention the way he dressed. Ian Poulter would come close. Payne Stewart was a snappy dresser too, but there aren’t characters like Doug was. He knew everybody.
‘‘He was also a hell of a player – he won 20 times on the PGA Tour.”