It’s the majors that matter, declares relaxed McIlroy

Rory McIlroy sought to silence any critics ahead of next week’s Masters declaring he didn’t mind if he missed 10 successive cuts in a season as long as he kept winning tournaments.

It had been three-time Masters champion, Phil Mickelson, suggesting, in the light of McIlroy adding this week’s Valero Texas Open to his schedule, this week’s San Antonio event was not “conducive” in preparing for Augusta National.

Firstly, Pádraig Harrington, who has joined McIlroy in America’s seventh most populated city, disagrees.

“If you think Rory’s trying to regain his stroke, well he won the last Major we played, so that says he’s a man in current form,” said Harrington.

“All Rory has to worry about is peaking the right weeks and his game is pretty good enough, as he’s shown when he does peak, he laps the field.

“So consistency is highly overrated. Consistency is something everyone wants but consistency is actually boring.

“Those majors will roll in when they’re due, so just let Rory have time and that’s why he’s here this week, to get more competitive.”

And McIlroy, who has played just a dozen completed rounds of golf this year, could not have agreed more with his fellow Irishman.

“I don’t care if I miss 10 cuts in a row if I win a major a year,” he said.

“I don’t care. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, it’s winning the big tournaments. Of course, it’s not going to be great for your confidence going into the Majors if you’re missing 10 cuts in a row. But when people look back on a person’s career, you don’t say Jack Nicklaus was so inconsistent. You could say he finished 19 times second in the majors. But what you think more is that he won 18 Majors. That’s what people remember. People remember the wins.

“And I am a person who doesn’t over-think things, and if I want to play the week before the Masters, I play the week before the Masters, and it’s good that I’m here in San Antonio and enjoying myself.”

And McIlroy has taken full responsibility for his decision to abandon returning to Haiti earlier this week in leading a second UNICEF delegation to the earthquake-ravaged island.

“UNICEF deserved me phoning them direct because the whole trip was planned around me going down to Haiti,” he said.

“So, that’s the least I could do and besides, what we do out here is all about relationships, building relationship from the start of your career that you hope are still in place right up to the end of your career.

“The nice thing about UNICEF is that it is a great relationship outside of golf, and I feel as though I have built up some strong relationships in my short time in the professional game.”

McIlroy spent Tuesday night helping to celebrate Shane Lowry’s 26th birthday and with Harrington also present along with Lowry’s coach, Neil Manchin; his manager, Sean O’Flaherty and the three Irish-born caddies.

However McIlroy had handed out a golfing lesson to Lowry earlier in the day for a second straight practice round victory over the reigning Portugal Masters champion.

“I owed him dinner last week after he beat me on the last hole in Houston and yesterday Rory gave me a good spanking, chipping in twice,” said Lowry.

McIlroy will play the opening two rounds in the company of Americans Jordan Spieth and Matt Kuchar, teeing up on day one from the 10th tee at 8am (2pm Irish time).

Harrington will join Americans John Huh and Gary Woodland off the first tee at 8am (2pm Irish) while Shane Lowry is out in the very last group at 2.20pm (8.20pm Irish time) partnering Australia’s Scott Gardiner and American Todd Brendon.