Crenshaw savors his last shots

Contending days over, but two-time winner upbeat in final Masters.

AUGUSTA — It took one last practice round to remind the old man why it was time to go. He banked a tee shot off a tree — — and since nobody was keeping score, anyway, then pulled another ball out of the bag and tried it again.

This one sailed to the right of the fairway toward back- pedaling fans.

“I’ve got three different drivers this week. None of them feel real good,” Ben Crenshaw said.

He didn’t seem worried,

Schultz

majors: Henrick Stenson, D. J. (Dustin Johnson), Jason Day, Jordan Speith. There’s lot of guys that are getting in under the radar this week a lot easier than they normally would.

“So, yeah, there’s a lot of stories. But at the moment, it’s all about Tiger and Rory.”

They are sociable, if not friends. McIlroy recalled a practice round they played in November, three months before Woods’ most recent hiatus. Woods birdied six of the first seven holes.

“Was I concerned for him? I mean, not really,” McIlroy said. “It’s hard to be concerned for someone that’s already won 14 majors and 80 PGA Tour (actually 79) events and earned over a billion dollars in his career. I think he’s done OK.”

That broke up a Tuesday media gathering, but the advertisement that Nike produced this week, chronicling an adolescent McIlroy’s stalking his hero — yes, that was wee Rory’s character chipping into the family dryer — gets at the truth. If this is to be a crowning week for McIlroy, it must play out with Woods on the grounds. Better yet, with Woods actually in competition.

“I’m feeling older,” said Woods, who turns 40 in December “There’s no doubt about that.”

Not that everyone is buying that.

“When you’re talking about a world-class player, you just don’t know,” 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott said. “I’m sure (Woods) has high hopes. His comfort level around this golf course must be extremely high, and he returned off a break before here (2008 for knee surgery) and finished (top six in 2009), I believe. So with Tiger, anything’s possible.”

To trace their careers over their first 25 years describes all that McIlroy must traverse to match Wood’s rise to power. Before his 26th birthday, Woods had won six majors. He accomplished the career Grand Slam when he was still 24, completing the feat with the 2000 British Open in a run of four consecutive major titles won in a twoyear span.

He was in the midst of a record 264-week install- ment as the world’s No. 1 player.

McIlroy, who turns 26 on May 5, has won four majors, joining Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only men to win so many so young. Not only would a green jacket this week complete the career slam, but it would give him three majors in a row, which only Woods and Ben Hogan (1943) have done since the first Masters in 1934.

McIlroy has been ranked No. 1 for 75 weeks, the past 36 consecutively.

While Woods found a second home at Augusta National, winning four times here, his first coming when he was 21, the place remains a puzzle for McIlroy. His mortifying 2011 meltdown — squandering a 4-shot lead on Sunday playing chutes-and-ladders golf between the Peek and Berckman cabins off the No. 10 fairway — might have damaged a lesser player. Nevertheless, his eighth-place finish last year represented McIlroy’s best finish in six Masters starts.

“I think the first couple of years, I was thinking more about where not to hit it instead of where to hit it,” McIlroy said. “… That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned, just to try to get it out of your head where you are and what it means and just try to execute your shots like you normally do.”

Nowhere moreso than on the par-5s, where the big bats can win here and where McIlroy does not always gain ground. While winning last year, Watson played the par5s in 8 under par. McIlroy played them even with six bogeys.

But while McIlroy can target good numbers, Woods will just try to make good swings, an ordeal of its own his last time out (WD with back pain at Torrey Pines after 11 holes) just nine weeks ago. After missing last year’s Masters, even after dawn-to-dusk practice sessions to re-groove his swing and the hip-hop dance routine to create a better rhythm, Woods seems well-collected this week, even appreciative.

“I just find it fascinating that they keep changing this place, it seems like every year, and it looks exactly the same, like it’s never been touched,” Woods said. “It’s fascinating.”

Kind of like the week.

CURTIS COMPTON / CCOMPTON@AJC.COM Tiger Woods reacts as he just misses a hole-in-one on the eighth hole during the Par 3 tournament Wednesday. Woods is attempting a comeback in a major he has won four times, the first time when he was 21.