By Doug Ferguson AP Golf writer
Augusta, Ga. – Rory McILroy had every reason to believe that the masters would be the first major he won. He was 21 years old without scar fabric, only brown and curly locks pouring out of his cap. And especially this Sunday afternoon in 2011, he had a lead of four shots.
Now it is the only adult he has not won. It has been the chatter that has flowed McILroy Down Magnolia Lane for 11 years. And it was never stronger.
Is it the year when he joined the most elite golf club with the Grand Calem de Carrière?
“It’s noise,” said McILroy on Tuesday in Augusta National. “He just tries to block this noise as much as possible. I have to treat this tournament like all the other tournaments that I play throughout the year.”
RIGHT.
“Listen, I understand the story and the noise, and there is a lot of anticipation and accumulation in this tournament every year,” he said. “But I just have to keep my head down and focus on my work.”
He tried to play the week before the masters. He removed the previous week, sometimes three weeks ago. Nothing seems to work. This year brings something new – winning. For the first time, McILroy comes to Augusta National who won twice this season, both against strong fields on famous courses (Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass).
Is it the year?
The story is not on its side. Only five players have the big chelem in a career of the four professional majors. Only three of them knew for which they were playing – Gary Player (1965), Jack Nicklaus (1966) and Tiger Woods (2000).
None of them had to wait more than three years to get the last step.
Arnold Palmer, who prepared the notion of the Grand Chelem Modern in 1960, played the PGA championship 34 times without ever winning to finish the slam. Tom Watson had 24 cracks in the PGA championship and ended his career at one leg below a slam.
Phil Mickelson obtains an more test in the United States.
McILroy plays the Masters for the 17th time. A single player made more appearances before finally wearing the green jacket – Sergio Garcia during his 19th test.
Perhaps more surprising than McILroy who is not already a champion of masters is the little chance he had since lost this advance of four strokes with an 80 in the final in 2011.
He was a finalist in 2022, but it was the year when Scottie Scheffler blurs everyone and went up the 18th Fairway with a five -stroke advance. He was in the last group with Patrick Reed in 2018 and had practically everything that has the support of the Augusta who launched his support behind him. McILroy pulled 74. Reed won the masters.
No, it’s not just another tournament, and McILroy knows it.
When he mentioned with casualness that his elbow disturbed him at the Houston Open two weeks ago, speculation began that it was a ploy to withdraw from himself.
One of the websites that followed private planes noticed that McILroy’s plane had gone to Augusta on the way back of Houston. Based on the flight model, it almost seemed that McILroy went to Florida when he said to the pilot: “Hang on, Veer on the left”. Or it could have been time.
McILroy knows that it is important because he thinks back to years when he may not have treated masters or any other adult with sufficient importance. Too many expectations. Too many close calls. Too much anxiety.
He left the players’ championship after his playoff victory when he stopped at the golf channel that was preparing for an interview and said about these years of mediocrity: “You must be willing to work with my heart, and I think I spent a few years in my career where I was not ready to put myself there. But I feel like I thought. ”
What did he learn? Above all, it is normal to feel the bite of a great disappointment, and there have been many lately to remind him.
He couldn’t buy a putt in St. Andrews in 2022. He missed two short on the section at the US Open last year. He couldn’t catch Wyndham Clark in the United States opened the previous year. They all hurt, and McILroy said famous after having finished a shot behind Clark, “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”
He hopes it was just a figure of speech.
“Instinally as human beings, we sometimes hold back because of the fear of injuring ourselves, whether it is a conscious decision or a subconscious decision,” he said on Tuesday. “And I think I was doing that on the golf course for a few years.
“But I think that once you have crossed this, once you have crossed these sorrows, as I call them, you arrive in a place where you remember what it is and you wake up the next day and you say to yourself:” Yeah, life continues, it’s not as bad as I thought. “”
The sun rose to Pinehurst last year, throwing light on its traces of tires when it took off from the gravel car park. This one hurts as much as.
And now it is back for more, the expectations higher than ever, the price never clearer.
McILroy is a passionate reader and said that he had now brought fiction to his world. He reads a novel by John Grisham.
“The calculation,” he said with a smile. “It took a good start.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
