Rory McIlroy focuses on staying in zone

What once were the far-off dreams of Rory McIlroy are now absorbed into the business of winning golf tournaments. 

And even when history beckons, at the Masters of all places, the world number one will be doing his level best to ignore the glory within his grasp and instead focus on not getting too far ahead of himself.

So McIlroy may well be teeing off tomorrow just 72 holes from completing a career grand slam of major titles but he is not taking anything for granted.

His preparation has been to his satisfaction after two weeks of practice in Florida and the 25-year-old has been ready to go for a week now but as he pursues a third major victory in a row, the Irishman insists anticipation is no different to his six previous Masters experiences.

“It doesn’t feel any different. I think it’s the anticipation factor, the hype, everything else, it feels the same because it’s always exciting to get here. It’s always a great week,” McIlroy said yesterday before turning his mind back to his expectations as an amateur on the brink of turning pro in 2007.

“I guess the dreams were there but it hadn’t ever entered my mind that realistically that was going to happen. Winning the silver medal at The Open is a huge honor for an amateur golfer, and I knew I was going to turn pro later that year.

“My first main objective was to get a card on The European Tour and have somewhere to play the next year, and I was able to do that. It was a steady progression for three years, 2008, 2009, 2010, and then once I won my first major in 2011, I started to believe that I could go on to achieve bigger and better things than just being a tour pro and making a living at the game.

“I felt like I could set my goals a little higher and that’s what I’ve done, and worked hard to achieve them. All of a sudden, I’m here and have a great opportunity to do what not many people in golf have done.”

The most recent of the five golfers to have achieved the career slam was Tiger Woods in 2000, and yesterday as he prepared for his 20th Masters he reflected on the opportunity McIlroy has to complete his quartet of majors at Augusta National.

“I look back when I did it in 2000, I couldn’t ask for a better place to do it at other than St. Andrews, the Home of Golf,” Woods said.

“And for Rory, you couldn’t ask for the other better place to do it, which is here at Augusta. It doesn’t get much better than that. So he has that opportunity and he’s going to have that opportunity for decades to come. But I’m sure he’ll have many green jackets in his closet before it’s all said and done.”

To get over the line, though, McIlroy understands his previous shortcomings here, which leaves last year’s eighth-place finish as his best result in six attempts. “The one thing I’ve learned, the one thing I took away from the first couple years I played was that as much as this golf course is, I feel, a second-shot golf course, it made me a little tentative over iron shots the first couple years.

“I had to learn to try and be a little bit more aggressive; aggressive to my spots here, instead of looking at a pin and sort of thinking of the places not to miss it. Because there’s places here where you can miss it and you can give yourself a straightforward up and down, and there’s places where you can’t miss it. I felt the first couple years, I was thinking more about where not to hit it instead of where to hit it.

“And I think, as well, you come here to Augusta National, it’s such an intimidating place the first time that you get here, and felt like I may have shown it a little bit too much respect at times. Instead of, you know, playing my normal game and playing the way I usually do. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned, just try and get it out of your head where you are and what it means and just try to execute your shots like you normally do.”

McIlroy’s normal, of course, is plenty different to most people’s, a perception underlined by his choice of caddie for today’s traditional par-three contest, Niall Horan from One Direction. Hardly a low-key move for a golfer who welcomed the return to the game of Woods this week as a means of shifting the focus from him but the Irishman insisted he was taking no notice of anything spoken or published about him anyway.

“I’m not really listening to anything that anyone is saying so it doesn’t really make a difference to me,” he said before adding that while he welcome his friend back to competitive golf and thought it good for the sport, he had not been especially worried about his poor form.

“Was I concerned for him? I mean, not really. It’s hard to be concerned for someone that’s already won 14 (majors) and 8 PGA Tour events and earned over a billion dollars in his career. I think he’s done okay.”