McIlroy must learn how to win, says Chandler

RORY McILROY needs to play more to learn the art of winning, his manager Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler said, in the wake of the 21-year-old’s Masters heartbreak.

McIlroy let slip a four-shot, 54-hole lead in the final round at Augusta on Sunday, bogeying the first hole and then, in his own words, unravelling on the back nine after his tee shot at the 10th hole ricocheted off a tree and landed left of the fairway between two cabins.

The Holywood youngster, with two career wins, also clipped a tree while attempting to find the green and carded a triple-bogey seven at the start of a horror run that left him with an eight-over-par final-round 80 and a tie for 15th place.

There had been no indication the wheels would fall off McIlroy’s round so dramatically and no hint of concern from the player himself that his preparations for the first major of the year had been anything less than ideal.

His last start before the Masters had been at last month’s World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship at Doral in Miami, his sixth tournament of the year.

“The problem with Rory is that he doesn’t play a lot, so you don’t get that much practice at winning,” said Chubby.

“And that’s the balance, how many times you play. You have to stay fresh and focused and it was great, he came in as fresh as a daisy, but you’ve got to learn to do certain things around a golf course.”

Chandler said he did not expect to see McIlroy until the Irishman’s return from this week’s Maybank Malaysian Open. McIlroy and Schwartzel were scheduled to travel together to the Far East yesterday to play the European Tour event and Chubby said he would discuss the Masters with him during his two-week break after that.

“He’s going to Malaysia to play and then, when he comes home for two weeks, we’ll sit down and discuss what’s happened and go through the bad moments, the great moments and try and work out where he goes from there.

“It’s not a train smash. He’s 21.

“But there’s certain things you could do differently. To miss the green back left at the first was probably not the good play. Maybe short right’s the play there and ease his way into the round. There were one or two moments when he could have kept the pressure off himself.

“But when the putter fails like that and you can hear all those roars — the atmosphere out there was just crazy — and Tiger coming back and suddenly becoming Tiger again, that’s fairly unnerving, I would think.

“I’ve never been in that position but I guess it is.”