AUGUSTA, Ga. – Not since Greg Norman has a player so thoroughly represented the dichotomy of professional golf’s version of the “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”
The non-fiction novel by John Berendt that was brilliantly adapted into a 1997 film starring John Cusack, is a Southern Gothic twist on the eternal struggle between right and wrong and is an apropos metaphor for where Rory McIlroy finds himself on the eve of his 64th major start.
Those who handicap such things will tell you that the Northern Irishman enters this year’s Masters as the qualified favorite, with two-time winner Scottie Scheffler being the ultimate outlier at Augusta National. McIlroy has won twice on the PGA Tour this season at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Players Championship – a signature event and the circuit’s flagship tournament, respectively – and checks all the boxes for the season’s first Grand Slam start.
Augusta National is the ultimate ball-striking contest with the highest GIR (greens in regulation) bias on Tour and, not surprisingly, McIlroy is first this season in strokes gained: approach (picking up more than a shot on the field this season). But it’s not the statistics or the analytics that make McIlroy’s 17th start at the Masters compelling, it’s the emotion.
Seventeen times, including that infamous start in 2011 when he entered the final round with a four-stroke lead and faded to a tie for 15th, he has motored down Magnolia Lane, and 17 times he has left without the one thing every professional golfer so deeply craves – a green jacket.
“I’ve always loved this course. I’ve always loved — 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,” McIlroy said Tuesday at Augusta National.
But if McIlroy’s relationship with Augusta National is a love story, it’s also been a tale of unrequited love.
He’s had plenty of success at the Masters with seven top-10 finishes; as well as plenty of heartbreak, which is perfectly framed by his ’11 meltdown.
The challenge for McIlroy, perhaps more than any other player in the field, is professional golf’s version of Berendt’s classic take: do you love the process or the result?
On Monday, Xander Schauffele inadvertently framed the narrative when he was asked about the unique pressures that come with being in contention at the game’s most important events.
“There’s a peaceful [element], if you can find it; there’s a serene part of it if you allow yourself to enjoy it almost,” Xander Schauffele allowed. “But I think it’s so high stress that the hardest thing to do in those spots is to stick to your process, is to have the correct conversation with your caddie before you hit the shot as if you’re teeing off on Thursday. That’s the hardest place to get to. And the better you can get at that when you’re under the gun, I think you’ll be more successful.”
Based on McIlroy’s tone, he would desperately like to embrace the type of “peace” of which Schauffele spoke.
“I think it’s a self-preservation mechanism [finding a way to enjoy the hunt more than the trophy]. It’s just more of a thing where you’re trying to not put 100 percent of yourself out there because of that. It happens in all walks of life,” McIlroy said. “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.”
McIlroy is no stranger to heartbreak. Last year at Pinehurst, he was exactly four holes away from winning another U.S. Open and finished bogey-bogey-par-bogey and a stroke behind champion Bryson DeChambeau. That loss took a week wandering the streets of New York City to process, but it was his 2019 campaign that might ultimately decide his Masters fate.
By most accounts, McIlroy’s ’19 season was a success, with three victories, 14 top-10 finishes and a FedExCup title. But his play in the majors, which was highlighted by his tie for eighth at the PGA Championship, left him thirsty.
“It was after the 2019 season. I remember I’d had a great year. I had my best statistical season ever. But I didn’t have a great season in the major championships,” he recalled. “I sort of made a commitment to myself from 2020 onwards, I made a commitment to myself to sort of earmark these a little bit more and to give a little bit more of myself in these weeks.”
In the 19 major starts since his 2019 season, McIlroy has 11 top-10s and three runner-up showings; compared to 10 top-10s and a single runner-up finish in the 19 starts prior to the end of the 2019 major season.
For McIlroy the decision was simple, if not cliched — it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
