McIlroy eager to sharpen his game ahead of Masters
Rory McIlroy played a leisurely 27 holes Sunday at Augusta National with his dad, a member of Augusta National and a member of Seminole.
Before teeing off, however, the group had to wait out a rainstorm. So the four-time major champion wound up at the spanking new multimillion-dollar media center that makes its debut this April at the Masters.
“It’s nuts. It’s unbelievable,” McIlroy said Wednesday after his pro-am at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “It’s a bit of a museum, as well. There’s so much cool memorabilia from the Masters and years gone by there. If I wasn’t playing in the thing, I know where I would want to be hanging out that week.”
Well, McIlroy hopes to hang out there after every round in the upcoming Masters, the only major he needs to win to complete the career Grand Slam. The week has been circled on his calendar, a significant objective he tailored his early-season schedule around, hoping to turn around his Augusta fortunes.
The world No. 3 has finished in the top 10 his last three starts at Augusta but is far from satisfied with his career in the first major of the season. His most famous Masters moment, after all, is his collapse in the final round of 2011, when he took a fourshot lead after 54 holes but shot 80 to finish in a tie for 15th.
McIlroy’s buildup to the Masters, however, hit a roadblock in January when he broke a rib. He missed four tournaments and was able to return only two weeks ago in the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship.
“I think there’s still a bit of ground to be made up. I wanted to play a heavy schedule going into Augusta; I wanted to be really sharp and I wanted to have played quite a few rounds competitively,” McIlroy said. “But I feel good now, and I didn’t feel like there was any reason to alter my schedule because of what happened.”
McIlroy said he played decently in Mexico in his first start back, going out in the final group the last two rounds and finishing in a tie for seventh. He has this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational and next week’s WGC-Match Dell Technologies Match Play to sharpen his form.
“By the time Augusta comes around, I’ll be happy with where I’m at,” he said.
He’s happy where he’s at this week, too. In addition to concentrating on ramping up his game, McIlroy will often think back to the special relationship he had with Palmer, who died in September. The two first met on the 13th hole at Augusta National during a practice round in 2009.
“He was out in a golf cart, had a pink T-shirt on, had a gray pair of slacks. Put his big massive mitt out at me and shook my hand, and that was the first time I met Arnold Palmer, which is, to me, playing on possibly my favorite golf hole in the world, as a golfer it’s a bit of a fairy tale, I guess,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy didn’t play in Palmer’s tournament until 2015 but did his best to make up for lost time. After the first round that year, he had dinner with Palmer.
“That I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” he said. “I’ll tell stories about that to my grandkids, hopefully, one day, and he was a special man. Bay Hill’s a special place. It means a lot to us. Obviously, very happy to be here this week, and it would be great to win this tournament in his memory. ...
“Arnold meant an awful lot to every one of us. Anyone that is involved with the game of golf in any capacity, especially the ones that get paid to play it or get paid to write about it, I mean, he was a massive part of that. And I think we all owe him a massive debt of gratitude for what he did for the game.”
“Bay Hill’s a special place. It means a lot to us. ... It would be great to win this tournament in his memory.” Rory McIlroy, on playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which starts Thursday. Golf legend Palmer died Sept. 25, 2016.