Now comfortable being vulnerable, Rory McIlroy's latest quest for elusive Masters glory begins

CHASING THE GREEN JACKET: Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, walks with caddie Harry Diamond on the fifth hole during a practice round at the Masters. Pic: Ashley Landis/AP

Ernie Els once said that “Augusta doesn’t owe anybody anything,” and it demonstrated that – sometimes cruelly – in his 23 unrequited efforts at the Masters. 

Other golf greats seemingly destined to win green jackets were forever turned away at the door to the Champions’ Dinner – Tom Weiskopf, Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Davis Love III and David Duval, to name just a few.

Rory McIlroy finds himself on the ridge between falling into that frustrated fraternity or climbing into the pantheon of golfers who conquered all the slopes to reach the career grand slam – Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tiger Woods.

Despite all of his skills that seem perfectly blended to suit Augusta National, McIlroy has never quite put it all together at Augusta. 

He’s shown flashes of brilliance like the opening 65 as a 21-year-old in 2011 when he nearly blitzed to a green jacket before it ever became an issue until a Sunday meltdown delivered his first Augusta scar. 

Or the closing 64 in 2022 that vaulted him to a career-best runner-up when he climbed from too deep a hole.

The world has seen McIlroy frequently triumph and fail, but the more recent failures seem to linger in the memory. 

McIlroy’s handling of his career setbacks has helped him develop resilience to keep putting himself out there again and again.

He calls it his “willingness to get his heart broken.” 

“It happens in all walks of life. At a certain point in someone’s life, someone doesn’t want to fall in love because they don’t want to get their heart broken,” he said. “People, I think, instinctually as human beings, we hold back sometimes because of the fear of getting hurt, whether that’s a conscious decision or subconscious decision, and I think I was doing that on the golf course a little bit for a few years.

“But I think once you go through that, once you go through those heartbreaks, as I call them, or disappointments, you get to a place where you remember how it feels and you wake up the next day and you’re like, yeah, life goes on, it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

“Going through those times, especially in recent memory, where the last few years I’ve had chances to win some of the biggest golf tournaments in the world and it hasn’t quite happened. But life moves on. You dust yourself off and you go again. I think that’s why I’ve become a little more comfortable in laying everything out there and being somewhat vulnerable at times.” 

McIlroy said that willingness to be vulnerable and lay it all out in the majors emerged after the 2019 season.

“I remember I’d had a great year. I’d won four times around the world. I’d won the FedEx Cup. I had my best statistical season ever. But I didn’t have a great season in the major championships,” he said. “I sort of made a commitment to myself from 2020 onwards that these four weeks a year I was going to … sort of earmark these a little bit more and to give a little bit more of myself in these weeks.” 

Lowry, McIlroy’s long-time friend who’s only grown closer in recent years, admires how McIlroy keeps putting himself out there.

“Look, I’ve spent a lot of time around Rory over the last few years, coming into this week, and obviously there is a lot of pressure on him, but I think he’s at a stage now where he’s certainly able to handle it,” Lowry said. “He’s won everything there is to win in golf. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was to give it a run this week. 

"I think there are a couple of players that if you finish ahead of them this week you’ll have a chance and he’s one of them.” 

With sports psychologist Bob Rotella, McIlroy focuses on “trying to chase a feeling on the golf course” and hoping that the golf takes care of itself.

One of the feelings he’s chasing at Augusta National goes back to spring evenings sitting at home in Northern Ireland with his father watching the Masters transpire on television and “remembering why I fell in love with the game”. 

It’s what drives his desire to add the green jacket to his expanding list of career accomplishments.

McIlroy is one of 11 players in the Masters era to have won only three of the four majors, missing only one piece. 

Sam Snead and Phil Mickelson couldn’t win the U.S. Open. Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson never won the PGA Championship. Byron Nelson barely tried to win the Open. Lee Trevino barely cared to win the Masters.

Jordan Spieth can empathize with what McIlroy is dealing with, as he just needs a PGA Championship to complete his own career slam. 

But the pressure on Spieth barely registers on the same scale as McIlroy, especially because he’s dealing with the most anticipated major every season.

“Augusta is just blown up more than it probably should be,” Spieth said recently. “In that sense, it gets blown up toward Rory. Majors are majors. Augusta, if you look at the field, it’s technically the easiest major to win. The more someone focuses on that, the better. It is the biggest tournament in the world and it has the most eyeballs for golf. Everything, no matter what the story is, gets blown a little out of proportion.” 

Still just 35, time remains on McIlroy’s side. Age hasn’t become an issue – yet – and McIlroy still has a long runway in front of him. 

Mickelson was almost 34 when he won his first major at the Masters in 2004. Snead and Dustin Johnson were 36, Vijay Singh and Sergio García both 37 and Hogan 38 when they won their first green jackets. 

Seven players have won the Masters after their 40th birthday.

McIlroy can’t go back to the innocence of his earliest visits to Augusta National when his whole career lay in front of him, but he can try to chase that feeling again this week while he’s still performing at peak skills that remain the envy of his peers.

“I was just happy to be driving down Magnolia Lane; there was no thought of whether this was going to be good for me or bad for me,” he said. “It was just an absolute thrill of a lifetime to drive down that lane at whatever it was, 19-years-old, and be playing in my first Masters.

“I’ve always loved this course. … People ask me, if you could only play one golf course for the rest of your life, what would it be? And I think walking around this place every day would be pretty cool.” 

Maybe this will be the week he makes himself a permanent part of this place – but for all the right reasons and none of the negative ones.