Rory McIlroy at Valero Texas Open Steering Clear of 'Masters Hype Train'

McIlroy playing the week before the Masters for the first time since 2014, preparing for Augusta and beyond.

Rory McIlroy has always been an open book.

He tells us what he’s thinking. His sincere reactions are always a breath of fresh air among today’s sports stars who often spin cliches or safe answers. McIlroy doesn’t do cliche.

Even when he’s asked whether he feels more pressure trying to win the Masters as I asked him among a group of reporters on Masters Sunday in 2016, the superstar didn’t shy away from embracing the heart of the question.

“This is the one that I haven't won and this is the one I want to win more than anything else,” McIlroy said under the sprawling oak tree beside the Augusta National clubhouse that day after tying for 10th place.

As this year’s Masters approaches — McIlroy’s eighth chance at completing the career grand slam — perhaps it should come as no surprise when McIlroy referred to the upcoming Masters week buzz surrounding him and other stars as the “Masters hype train” in an exclusive interview at Bay Hill in Orlando, Florida, this month.

How has he dealt with that hype in the past? McIlroy often shares how he doesn’t like reading his phone during Masters week and greatly limits his time watching TV and looking at the Masters buildup on the numerous sports channels. The Northern Irish superstar’s sticking to those guns again this year.

“I think you try to shield yourself from all of that hype as best you can, you try not to read much, you try not to watch much TV, and you try to just focus on yourself and focus on your game,” McIlroy said at Bay Hill.

McIlroy hasn’t played the week before Augusta since the 2014 Houston Open, where he tied for seventh. His schedule usually includes the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, which is two weeks before the Masters, but he skipped the Match Play this year and announced in February that he would add this week’s Valero Texas Open, clearly shuffling the deck. He committed to play the Valero in 2020 but the event was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Masters was postponed until November.

“I think part of the reason I want to play in Texas leading into Augusta (this year) is because all I'm doing is focusing on getting my game ready to go to not just play Augusta,” he said. “It would be great to go to Texas and have a chance to win the golf tournament and that would be cool too. But it's just a way for me to get my mind away, get out of thinking so much about the future and focus a little bit more on the present. I think by playing the week before that helps me do that.”

McIlroy also knows he wants to make the inevitable drive down Magnolia Lane next week in a good spot mentally, and his mantra for each tournament remains simple.

“I want to enter events feeling a sense of freedom in my swing,” McIlroy said. “That’s when I know I can play some of my best golf.”

A free-wheeling McIlroy at Augusta National? What a sight that would be should he find that freedom from his play this week at Valero.

McIlroy has played some great golf in spurts at the Masters, but rarely for all four rounds. Remember how well he played in 2011 when he held a four-shot lead after three rounds? Then the back nine on Sunday got the better of him and McIlroy free fell to a tie for 15th. He then waited seven years to get into a Masters Sunday pairing again, in 2018.

Who can forget how ferociously he fought during that third round in 2018 with that chip-in eagle on eight and emphatic reactions there and on his putt on 18 that led to a 65. But that Sunday, McIlroy faded to a tie for fifth with a 2-over 74 and his showdown with eventual winner Patrick Reed – a rematch of sorts from the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine 18 months earlier – never really materialized.

Then there’s the 2012 Masters when he entered the weekend only one shot behind the lead, in the third-to-last group. Things looked so promising, but he shot 77-76 on the weekend to tie for 40th.

In his very first chance at career grand slam history in Augusta after winning the 2014 PGA, McIlroy shot an impressive 12-under in that subsequent 2015 Masters but finished fourth due to Jordan Spieth’s record-tying (at the time) 18-under score and hot weeks from Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose who finished joint second at 14-under.

McIlroy's provided a few other good Masters performances over the years, but one thing that came to my mind as I spoke with him at Augusta in 2018 was, has he ever let himself think about what reality would be like should he finally break through at Augusta National? Just imagine the sense of relief for the superstar who’s been saddled with this hyper-focused burden from the golf world for now nearly a decade. What would it mean for him to win the Masters and finally get that career grand slam?

“It would mean everything,” McIlroy said. “I’ve wanted to win the Masters ever since I was that little kid growing up in Northern Ireland. I’ve always wanted to be known for winning major championships and especially the Masters. It would be absolutely amazing for me and my career.”

This now begs the question, what does he need to do to get to the elusive finish line and win that green jacket?

“I just need to keep doing what I'm doing, continue to just make sure I’m playing well, have a good mindset, focus on the things that I can do like good thought processes, good preparation, staying in the moment, putting forth my best effort each and every time I get over the ball, all of that," McIlroy told me at the 2019 Masters. “If I just keep doing that, keep persisting, and keep chipping away at all of those things, then hopefully at the end of the week it all adds up to a good result.”

One thought McIlroy's taking into account this year that’s different from past years, is a sentimental mindset, which he talked about with Pete Cowen, who has been his part-time swing coach the last couple of years.

That sentiment is that he gets to go to Augusta this year chasing his childhood dreams.

“I’ve got a chance to do something very few people have ever done, so that’s pretty cool," he said.