‘Two trips put Rory back on his feet’

A HEART-to-heart in Rory McIlroy’s kitchen convinced manager Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler the young Irishman was over his Augusta collapse and ready to win a major.

Ten days after McIlroy blew his four-shot, 54-hole lead at the Masters with a final-round 80, International Sports Management boss Chandler plotted a way forward.

“The first thing I said to Rory on that Sunday night, when there is nothing to say, ‘I know what to do when you get the Green Jacket next year. I have had the practice run for it’,” Chandler said.

“But we didn’t really discuss anything to happen with Sunday until the week or so afterwards and then it was good because there is no emotion. “We had this big chat and it looked like we were going into this that and the other and it had nothing to do with the golf at all. It was something non-golf related.”

One of the key factors to the Masters disaster, Chandler said, had been the lack of communication between the player and his caddie JP Fitzgerald and the failure to slow down McIlroy’s play under pressure, points which were addressed at Congressional.

“I didn’t speak to JP enough over that last day,” the US Open champion said of Augusta.

“I feel like even if it’s not about golf, having a conversation about something completely different is probably the best thing for me because it takes my mind off it and it takes me from getting too involved in what I’m doing.

“To have him there and have him talk about what he did last night or just anything like that, it takes your mind off what you’re doing for a couple of minutes. And it’s nice to have that. I need to keep talking to JP and just have conversations going down the fairways.”

Speaking after that press conference, Chandler said: “What he said about talking to JP was right because they didn’t work as a team at all at Augusta on the last day and yesterday when he was quick on the range I kept talking to him to stop him hitting it, just slow him down.”

Chandler also praised the way McIlroy reacted to his Masters disappointment, citing his trips to the Malaysian tournament and his UNICEF visit to Haiti.

“I think there’s two things we were really lucky with. One was that he went to Malaysia, which got him away from... sitting down thinking about it. It got him back on the bike, he finished third which was incredible, but it sort of softened it a bit so that by the time I went and saw him on the Wednesday, he said, ‘I’m not sure what all the fuss is about’.

“So it was already out of his head.

“And then going to Haiti was massive. If ever you needed putting things in perspective — he said to me, ‘I don’t know what the fuss is about, it’s only a game’, and if you want to realise it’s only a game, you go to Haiti. So I think those two things probably helped him.”