Rory McIlroy Figured Out How to Love Augusta, and Now He’s Chasing History

He’s won every major championship except for the Masters. But if he finally breaks through this week, he’ll join a very exclusive group of men to win the career grand slam.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Every time Augusta National shoos Rory McIlroy away without a green jacket, he returns with fresh flowers, not that the place needs any more. He believes he can finally win the Masters this week, maybe even believes he will win, and he is happy to be back at a place he loves, even though the place has not loved him back.

McIlroy has won every major championship but the Masters. He knows only five men have won the career Grand Slam, and he can easily rattle off their names: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player. McIlroy so badly wants to be the sixth that at times here, his aspirations have asphyxiated his game. Yet McIlroy said he texted fellow Florida transplant Shane Lowry with an idea: We’re going to practice anyway, why not do it up there? They arrived Thursday.

“More than anything else, it’s fun,” McIlroy said. “It’s fun to be here. It’s fun to play. It‘s a treat.”

All golfers have fun when they play their best. McIlroy has always been at his best when he is having fun. A disproportionate number of his victories have come when he’s blown away the field, playing joyful golf at a level that very few people have ever reached. At his best, Woods convinced himself that difficult recovery shots from awful lies make the game more fun; by the time he arrived at an errant drive, he was excited to summon a miracle. McIlroy can hit those shots, too. But his game is more about managing stress than enjoying it.

Is this Rory’s year? He is too optimistic to ever think it’s not, but too realistic to ever declare it is or even that it ever will be. Somebody asked him Tuesday about Augusta National being so well suited for him, and he responded that people said the same of Ernie Els and Greg Norman, neither of whom has ever been invited to a Champions Dinner. It’s easy for us to say someone should win here. We don’t swing the club.

For every player, the Masters is a test of driving prowess, putting touch, creativity and will. For McIlroy, it is also a test of love. He arrived here adoring the place and will leave here adoring it. He just had to figure out how to love it in all the moments in between.

McIlroy has lost the Masters on the first nine Thursday and the last nine Sunday. But last year, in the final round, he had what felt like a breakthrough. He shot 8-under 64 to finish second at 7 under par. He was never going to catch Scottie Scheffler, who won at 10-under 278. But for a while, McIlroy convinced himself he could, and the gallery cheered like he could, and he enjoyed how that felt. It showed in how he played.

“I walked away from the course and the tournament pretty happy with myself, as you can see on the screen over there,” McIlroy said, gesturing toward a large screen in the press conference room at the Augusta National Media Resort & Spa, which showed him celebrating after holing his bunker shot on the 72nd hole.

In 2018, Jordan Spieth had the same kind of finish here: a final-round 64 that thrilled the crowd and still left him two shots behind the winner, Patrick Reed. But that round did not do for Spieth what last year’s 64 could do for McIlroy, because Spieth did not need it. Spieth won here in ’15, he contends here more often than not and he thrives on the game’s entropy. A classic Spieth hole involves a tee shot into the trees, caddie Michael Greller warning him not to try a hero recovery shot, Spieth trying it anyway, the recovery shot going just as poorly as Greller feared, Spieth yelling at Greller and Spieth somehow making birdie anyway.

McIlroy’s brain doesn’t work that way. When he wins, his spirits carry his shotmaking.

McIlroy said recently that his work reconfiguring the PGA Tour and fighting off the LIV threat had worn on him. He would like to go back to just being a golfer. Anyone who has worked to save the values and history of their employer would understand. But if McIlroy’s leadership role has been a distraction, it has also given him clarity of purpose. He will put tee to ground with a clear conscience, and he seems at peace with any residual damage, or at least with his role in it. His old Ryder Cup friend Sergio Garcia might not be a friend at the moment. But McIlroy still gets along with LIV star Dustin Johnson, and he planned to play nine holes with LIV’s Brooks Koepka here Tuesday, a day after playing with PGA Tour proselytizer Tiger Woods. The sport is fractured. But while McIlroy has helped shape the Tour’s strategy, his self-image is tied more to the righteousness of the cause than the thrill of the fight.

He has had more than his share of Masters trauma, but probably none of it is so specific to ambush him. He had that famous meltdown on No. 10 in 2011, hitting a tee shot into a part of Augusta most members have never seen—and when I say “Augusta,” I’m talking about the city, not the course. But technology has muted any chance of a redux. If McIlroy carries a lead into Sunday’s back nine, he will almost certainly hit an easy 3-wood into the fairway and have a short iron or wedge into the green.

McIlroy is more likely to be spooked by the game’s history than any particular memory. Woods, Nicklaus, Hogan, Sarazen, Player, McIlroy? McIlroy can make that happen this week, as long as he finds a way to enjoy it. He will probably always believe he can win here. It would be nice if he came back one day believing he can repeat.