Rory McIlroy returned home after the 2018 Masters, unable to shake the feeling of yet another chance at a green jacket having slipped away. He tried reading books, binge-watching television, drinking wine — but nothing seemed to work.
“It was just the quiet moments when you’re staring off into the distance and you’re thinking about a certain shot or a certain putt,” McIlroy said in a press conference Wednesday. “It got to the point where I needed to see a bit of daylight and get outside and go for walks and start to do my usual thing.” Eventually, McIlroy’s wife Erica intervened, forcing him to leave the house and get back to a normal routine.
While he may not have triumphed, McIlroy said he was holding his game together at Augusta National. He even called his Saturday 65 lucky, and commended Patrick Reed for his ability to maintain a level head down the stretch. At Augusta, as McIlroy knows well, everything is bigger: the hype, the anticipation, the pressure, etc. “The Masters has become the biggest golf tournament in the world and I’m comfortable saying that,” McIlroy said. “I don’t care about the U.S. Open or The Open Championship. It is the biggest tournament in the world. It has the most amount of eyeballs, the most amount of hype. The most amount of everything is at Augusta.”
He’ll get his next crack at finishing off the career grand slam in 11 months.
