Rory McIlroy: 'I’ve literally made my dreams come true'
DREAM COME TRUE: Rory McIlroy with his wife Erica Stoll, and daughter Poppy, holds the trophy after winning the Masters. Pic: AP Photo/David J. Phillip.
Heartbreak and Rory McIlroy had become almost indistinguishable as the years piled up without major championship glory.
The man from Northern Ireland who at his best plays golf better than anybody else on the planet kept finding new and different ways to torment himself and his fans on the game’s biggest stages.
“When I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet,” McIlroy said after one of those tormented Sundays two years ago at Los Angeles Country Club.
“I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”
It must have seemed like 100 Sundays – and this Sunday felt at times like all of them at once – but McIlroy’s moment live up to the hype.
Once the green jacket was nestled over his shoulders, McIlroy revealed the truths of the burden he bore for so long. Not just the last 11 years as he came to Augusta annually with the potential to fulfill his dreams, but even longer going back to the misery he suffered in 2011 that left the first of many scars on his Masters psyche.
It poured out of him in the heaving tears hs shed when he dropped to his knees after the winning putt dropped in the playoff.
“What came out of me on the last green there in the playoff was, you know, at least 11 years, if not 14 years of pent-up emotion,” he said.
In 2011, McIlroy started with a four-shot lead over 2009 champion Angel Cabrera. On Sunday morning, while McIlroy’s nerves were all a jumble, he arrived at ANGC to find a note in his locker.
“I got to my locker this morning and I opened it up, and there was a note in there from Angel Cabrera, and just wishing me luck,” McIlroy said.
“And Angel Cabrera was the player I played with on the final day in 2011. It was a nice touch and a little bit ironic at the same time. It’s been 14 long years, but thankfully I got the job done.”
What it meant to McIlroy was written all over his face as he wore the green jacket he’ll get to don for the rest of his life. Shane Lowry wasn’t sure his mate would fess up to what winning the Masters and the career grand slam meant to him, so he stuck around to let everyone know even after shooting an 81 himself on Sunday.
“This means everything to him. It’s all he thinks about. It’s all he talks about,” Lowry said.
“He’s always said to me that he’d retire a happy man if he won the green jacket. I told him he can retire now. He’s had a long 10, 11 years. He’s had a lot of hurdles; he’s had a lot of moments to come back from. It’s a credit to him. It’s a sign for the rest of us that no matter what happens or how bad you feel, keep going and keep working.”
McIlroy willingly released all of the emotion he kept bottled up in side all week as he focused on the present instead of the dream.
“I think I've carried that burden since August 2014. It’s nearly 11 years,” he said. “And not just about winning my next major, but the career grand slam. You know, trying to join a group of five players to do it, you know, watching a lot of my peers get green jackets in the process, it’s been difficult. And I’ve tried to approach this tournament with the most positive attitude each and every time that I’ve shown up.
“I talked about it at the start of the week, but you know, there’s talking about it and actually doing it. And yeah, today was difficult. I was unbelievably nervous this morning. Really nervous on the first hole, as you witnessed with the double. But, as I said, that sort of calmed me down and I was able to bounce back and show that resilience that I’ve talked about a lot.”
That resilience was never more on display on a day when anything and everything happened. He lost his overnight two-shot lead on the first hole, fell behind, surged in front by four strokes, lost it all in two holes to fall behind again, retook the lead twice in the last four holes with iconic Masters Sunday shots only to lose it once again on the last hole of regulation. It was utter madness unlike anything anyone’s ever seen on a major championship Sunday.
Yet after all that, McIlroy delivered again with a perfect drive and sand wedge in the playoff to get the job done.
“You have to be the eternal optimist in this game,” he said.
“You know, I’ve been saying it until I’m blue in the face. I truly believe I’m a better player now than I was 10 years ago. It’s so hard to stay patient. It’s so hard to keep coming back every year and trying your best and not being able to get it done.
“You know, there was points on the back nine today, I thought, have I let this slip again? But you know, again, I responded with some clutch shots when I needed to, and really proud of myself for that.”
When it was all over, McIlroy could look back at that “character-building day” in 2011 when his 21-year-old self melted down in front of the world but didn’t let that be the end of his story.
“Maybe I probably didn’t understand myself. I didn’t understand why I got myself in a great position in 2011, and I probably didn’t understand why I let it slip in a way,” he said.
“You know, that experience, going through the hardships of tough losses and all that, and I would say to him, just stay the course. Just keep believing. And I would say that to any young boy or girl that’s listening to this.
"I’ve literally made my dreams come true today, and I would say to every boy and girl listening to this, believe in your dreams, and if you work hard enough and if you put the effort in, that you can achieve anything you want.”
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