Bridgerton, resilience, and Masters recon: Could it add up to being Rory McIlroy's year?

“I’ve gotten into ‘Bridgerton’ – I didn’t think I would,” said McIlroy. “I was very against watching it, but Erica convinced me. So we’re on a bit of a ‘Bridgerton’ kick this week, yeah."

Hundreds of trees at Augusta National were lost when Hurricane Helene blew through the course in September. Those lost include ones on the 10th hole which cost McIlroy dearly in 2011. Pic: Andrew Redington/Getty Images

It’s inescapable. Whenever Rory McIlroy turns his courtesy car onto Magnolia Lane, what he calls “noise and narrative” follow him everywhere for the duration of Masters week.

Is this McIlroy’s year? Does he have what it takes to win a green jacket?

“It’s just trying to block out that noise as much as possible; I need to treat this tournament like all the other tournaments that I play throughout the year,” McIlroy said ahead of his 17th career start at Augusta National.

“Look, I understand the narrative and the noise, and there’s a lot of anticipation and buildup coming into this tournament each and every year. But I just have to keep my head down and focus on my job.” 

How does someone trying to join the most exclusive club in golf history block out that noise when they’re trying to win the one major championship piece left to become the seventh player to complete the career grand slam?

For McIlroy this week, the answer might come in the way of frivolous diversion – titillating television and page-turning legal fiction.

“I’ve gotten into ‘Bridgerton’ – I didn’t think I would,” he said. “I was very against watching it, but Erica convinced me. So we’re on a bit of a ‘Bridgerton’ kick this week, yeah.

“And for the first time in a long time I am reading a novel. I actually got some fiction into my life. It’s a John Grisham book: ‘The Reckoning.’ It’s got off to a pretty good start.” 

It can be a daunting task to create normalcy when you’re a player the calibre of McIlroy. He’s reached a phase in life where even his four-year-old daughter, Poppy, is capable of recognising what her daddy does for a living.

“The day after the Players, she went into school and there was a couple of kids that had said some stuff to her, and she came home to me that day and said, ‘Daddy, are you famous?’” McIlroy said with a laugh. “I said, ‘It depends who you talk to.’” 

Too often in the last decade, McIlroy has been famous for the wrong reason – not winning majors. What had come so easy to him in compiling four major wins by the time he was 25 has been far more difficult in the last 11 years as he’s had to deal with repeated heartbreaks on the major stages. Those heartbreaks have been especially acute in the last three years with particularly painful near-misses at St. Andrews in 2022, Los Angeles CC in 2023 and Pinehurst No. 2 in 2024 – all three that felt like opportunities that got away from him. Yet McIlroy hasn’t let those moments keep him down.

“Over the course of my career I think I’ve showed quite a lot of resilience from setbacks, and I feel like I’ve done the same again, especially post-June last year and the golf that I’ve played since then, and it’s something that I’m really proud of,” he said.

“Look, you have setbacks and you have disappointments, but as long as you can learn from them and move forward and try to put those learnings into practise I feel like is very, very important. When you have a long career like I have had, luckily, you sort of just learn to roll with the punches, the good times, the bad times, knowing that if you do the right work and you practice the right way, that those disappointments will turn into good times again pretty soon.” 

So far in 2025, times have been good for McIlroy. He won a signature event on a trophy course at Pebble Beach and claimed a second Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. He added a start at Houston two weeks ago on a course he’d never played before and improved his score every day to claim a T5.

He’s made two advance scouting trips to Augusta National before and after the Houston event to work on the shots he’ll need to finally get over the line in the Masters. He’s spent time working the last two weeks with coach Michael Bannon and feels ready.

“So coming up here a couple of times, doing a little bit more preparation on some of those shots on the golf course I think is important,” he said. 

“But once we get into the tournament week like now, you try to treat it the same and you just try to go through – basically check the boxes. I want to do certain things and I want to do my drills on the putting green and make sure I get my range sessions in just so that I’ve checked the boxes and feel as comfortable as I can going out there on Thursday morning.” 

One more thing in McIlroy’s favour this week could be the way Augusta National plays without hundreds of trees that were lost when Hurricane Helene blew through Augusta last September. Among the casualties were several prominent pine trees down the left side of the 10th hole, where McIlroy lost a three-shot lead at the final turn in the 2011 Masters when his drive clipped one of them and ricocheted to the cabins and led to a devastating triple.

“There are a couple tee shots that are maybe a little less visually intimidating, thinking like a tee shot like 10 with a little bit of that tree loss on the left side,” McIlroy pointed out. 

“Your target there is that sort of TV camera tower down there at the bottom of the hill. You used to not be able to see that, and now you can see that pretty clearly. Visually it looks like you don't have to turn the ball as much as you used to.

“There’s a little bit more room on the right side of three if you want to hit driver up there. There’s a couple overhanging trees that aren’t there anymore. But really, apart from that, I think it’s pretty much the same.” 

Between the noise-cancelling Bridgerton and the scar removal of some trees he’s had personal history with, maybe this will actually be Rory’s year at Augusta.