With Pressure Off, Rory McIlroy Ready for his 14th Shot at a Green Jacket

The 32-year-old has finished in the top 10 nearly half the time at Augusta, but a win has remained elusive — sometimes painfully so.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy is doing fine, he said on Tuesday. He still needs a win here to complete the career grand slam, but he insisted that despite his haunted Masters history, he is more excited to spend Wednesday watching his 19-month-old daughter, Poppy, toddle around the par-3 course than he is to spend the weekend trying to snare a green jacket.

“I'm maybe at a different stage of my life where back then [in 2014, the last time he won a major], golf was everything,” he said. “Obviously, look, it's still very, very important, but maybe back then I would think that — I don't know if I would feel like I was fulfilled if I didn't win one or whatever it is, but it's less pressure [now].”

That sounded good. It also sounded good when he said it in 2021 —“It feels a little more relaxed this week” — and 2020 — “It's more subdued. It's more relaxed” — and 2019 — “I'm not getting ahead of myself” — and 2018 — “I have gotten in my way here before, but I think because I'm a little more comfortable on the golf course and comfortable in my game, I don't think that will happen this week.”

This annual assurance that he is out of his head and in his game — truly a tradition unlike any other — is not really McIlroy’s fault. Reporters keep asking him if he has figured out how to handle the pressure, and what is he supposed to say?

He is 32, and this is his 14th Masters. “In four years’ time when I'm 36, I'll have played my 18th Masters, and that will be half of my life spent here,” he said. “It's pretty crazy to think about it.”

He has finished in the top 10 here six times, but either by playing himself out of contention on Thursday and Friday, then relaxing enough to make it look good over the weekend, or by collapsing late.

The most famous of those failures was his meltdown in 2011, when he entered Sunday with a four-stroke lead and the back nine at one over par, then hooked his tee shot on No. 10 into the cabins en route to a score of 80. A year later, he said that the pressure had gotten to him that day. And, of course: “I feel like myself. I'm more relaxed. I sort of have a bounce in my step.”

He did add a new refrain this year to the usual song, though. In some ways, Augusta is a good physical fit for him: He is long and extremely skilled. But mentally, he said on Tuesday, this place poses a real challenge.

The way to win the Masters, he said, is “just patience, discipline, don't make big numbers. For me, anyway, it feels like a very negative way to think, but it's the way to play around this place. You don't have to do anything spectacular.

“I played with [Dustin Johnson] in the first two rounds when he won here in 2020. I think he was 12 under after two days, and I got off the golf course thinking, '12-under is a helluva score after two days here, but I wasn't in awe of the way he played.' It's just [that] he did the right things and he put it in the right spots and he held a few putts and he took advantage of the par 5s, and he basically did everything that this golf course asks of you.

“That's what this place is all about. It's as much of a chess game as anything else, and it's just about putting yourself in the right positions and being disciplined and being patient and knowing that pars are good, and even if you make a couple of pars on the par 5s, that's OK, and you just keep moving forward.”

Later, he added that Augusta “beats you into going for flags that you shouldn't go for. So, again, it's about being very disciplined with your approach play, knowing that, if you hit a wedge to 20 or 30 feet, that's OK. Middle of the greens, you hole a few putts, that's what it's about. It's about hitting greens. It's about playing to the fat part of the green, being somewhat conservative. I think that's what wins you Masters. You see the highlights of people hitting heroic golf shots around here, but that's just one golf shot. The rest of the time, they're doing the right things and being patient and being disciplined, and that's what wins you green jackets.”

When McIlroy plays his best golf, he runs away with tournaments. He has won four majors, two by eight strokes each and a third when he had a six-shot lead entering Sunday. He must resist the urge to force that here.

“It feels [like] playing very negatively, playing away from trouble, not firing at flagsticks, not being aggressive,” he said. “It feels like a negative game plan, but it's not. It's just a smart game plan. It's playing the percentages. Look, Sunday, if you need to take risks, you take risks obviously, but for the first 54 holes, you just have to stay as disciplined as possible. To me, yeah, that goes against my nature a little bit, so it is something I have to really work hard on.”

If that work is going to pay off, this would be as likely a year as any. He is scheduled to play in the last group on Thursday, some two and a half hours after the real main event: Tiger Woods’s first round of competitive golf since he nearly lost his right leg in a single-car crash 14 months ago. McIlroy insisted on Tuesday that he does not find the spotlight overwhelming — but he acknowledged in nearly the same breath that he enjoyed the “mass exodus” away from him when Woods teed off during the Monday practice rounds. The quick turnaround from his 2:03 p.m. Thursday tee time to his 10:45 a.m. Friday tee time will also limit how long he can dwell on Thursday’s result, whatever it is.

It may be true that McIlroy no longer feels much pressure to complete the career grand slam, but the pressure will come on Sunday if he is contention. The trick is to get there.    

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- 30 Years Later, Fred Couples' Green Jacket Still Resonates
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