AUGUSTA, Ga. — At his first-ever Masters, a 19-year-old Rory McIlroy said something interesting.
“You’re so excited to be here, but I’m going to try to take that excitement and turn it into good golf,” he told Irish interviewer Shane O’Donoghue. “Just try and be excited, and if I hit a bad shot, not to worry — because I’m at the Masters.”
It’s a nice sentiment, right? If I hit a bad shot, not to worry — because I’m at the Masters.
This Sunday, 16 Masters and several lifetimes later, you can throw that out the window.
On Saturday, Rory McIlroy electrified the Augusta National crowd. He came off the first tee shot from a cannon, starting birdie-eagle-birdie, and, for the first time in Masters history, 3-3-3-3-3-3. He slingshotted from T3 to ahead, suddenly, by a whole bundle. He gave back a couple bogeys in the middle of the round but then he electrified the crowd again, making a neat up-and-down for birdie at 13 and then hitting a towering iron shot into 15 that echoed towering iron shots at 15 of Masters champions past and setting up a putt for eagle that sent roars so far loud they ran through Rae’s Creek and into the Savannah River. And in doing so, he put himself in the best, riskiest, most terrifying position of all: ahead.
Sometimes golf broadcasters refer to the guy in front as the solo leader. Other times they’ll say something even more specific, and daunting:
He leads, alone.
This week’s stakes were always high for McIlroy. They’re high at every major. They’re higher at the Masters. They’re impossibly higher than that now that he’s this close. If you’re a sports fan you know the drill by now: McIlroy is the greatest player of his generation but he has not won a major championship in over a decade. He’s a four-time major champion but has never won the Masters.
“Nobody anywhere, anytime, all year will face as much pressure as Rory does arriving at Augusta National,” Brandel Chamblee said before a golf shot had even been struck. Before McIlroy shot 66-66 on Friday and Saturday to take the lead. Before he became the clear betting favorite. Before he got to the doorstep of victory. Before he set up what promises to be the biggest showdown the game could muster, its two highest-wattage players doing battle on its highest-wattage stage.
That’s the other element at play here: McIlroy’s opponent. We’re just 10 months removed from Bryson DeChambeau breaking McIlroy’s heart at last year’s U.S. Open, a sequence of events that began with two short missed putts from McIlroy and concluded with DeChambeau’s epic up-and-down for par and the title.
On Saturday, when McIlroy’s eagle putt dropped at 15, DeChambeau fell five shots behind. But he birdied 15. And then, when he birdied 16, he turned and mean-mugged the largest, loudest gallery on the course, gritting his teeth and tapping his putter menacingly on the green. His message?
“I’m still here,” he said in his post-round presser. “I’m not gonna back down.”
A holed birdie putt from off the green at 18 ensured that he’s just two shots back. Not backing down indeed.
The idea that McIlroy is afraid of this moment is, of course, projection. It’s written from a distance, from the perspective of a much lesser golfer with a much weaker mind. McIlroy has not mentioned being terrified. Not once. After Saturday’s round he was asked how he’d spent his Saturday night in 2011, when he last held the 54-hole Masters lead.
“That was 14 years ago. I have no idea. Again, I’m glad I have a short memory,” he said.
This Saturday night he said he’ll try to make it through Season 3, Episode 2 of “Bridgerton,” though he fell asleep during Episode 1 on Friday night.
But we know he’s thinking about it. That he’s spoken with performance coach Dr. Bob Rotella, working on mindset. That he has little phrases, “cliche mantras,” scribbled in the back of his yardage book. That he was swinging faster than he has all week on Saturday, just from anxious energy. That he’ll try not to check his phone until post-round Sunday. Of course he’s thinking about it. How could you not?
A victory would change everything. It would give McIlroy the career grand slam, a feat only achieved by Tiger Woods in this golfing generation. It would give McIlroy five majors, matching Brooks Koepka for the most among his peers. It would erase all the close calls of the past decade; reframing failures as high finishes. That’s what happens when you win a Masters; it has a multiplier effect. McIlroy’s PGA Tour wins and his Orders of Merit and his FedEx Cup titles would all mean that much more when bookended with his biggest major title of all. Winning takes care of everything.
A defeat? That pain is hard to fathom. It’s fully plausible that DeChambeau will outplay McIlroy on Sunday, that he’ll outduel him with brawn and brains and brilliance in big-time moments. McIlroy could lose on a horrific mistake, of course, but he could also lose without choking. He could play well and not win. And another close call after a decade of close calls, from this position, to that golfer, is tough to imagine. Consider this: should DeChambeau win tomorrow he’d have three majors. That’d be just one behind McIlroy. He’d have one Masters. That’d be one ahead. Rory McIlroy cannot lose this tournament.
In his pre-tournament press conference, the pride of Northern Ireland foretold this exact scenario. He talked about putting himself in the position to feel that pain again.
“People, I think, instinctually as human beings we hold back sometimes because of the fear of getting hurt,” he said. “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.'”
For McIlroy, life has gone on. After Pinehurst and LACC and St. Andrews and Augusta. Life has brought him back to here.
“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,” he said. “But you dust yourself off and you go again.”
Rory McIlroy leads, alone.
There’s nowhere he’d rather be.
And nowhere more terrifying.
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
