AUGUSTA, Ga. – There’s more Charlie Brown in this one Rory McIlroy from what you can tell. You see him, from time to time, in the dressing rooms of the club, with his hat high on his head and his brim at 3 o’clock, his cheeks filled with air. You saw it in Augusta National On Sunday night, at the witching hour, the 18. The only the thing to do was to hit something in the game, with some club. He drove it wildly right, where no 71-hole, two-stroke leader has ever stood before. In this age when we think we know everything, the reigning champion knew nothing. He didn’t know where his ball was. I didn’t know if he would be the first player in Masters history to reach a six-shot, 36-hole lead. A double bogey would mean a playoff. A playoff is a bad shot.
He left that tea. His parents were at the club. Millions of us were in the dark.
where is it
Does he have a stroke?
Is this really happening?
THIS GAME OF GOLF. No sport has more mystery, no sport is more deceptive. Maybe not for Tiger in his prime, who was so good that his ruthless victory was grand, boring and inevitable. But the thing about Rory’s golf is that the strange and fascinating beauty of the game is there for all of us to see. He was 12 under through 36 holes and had a six-shot lead. He was 12 under through 72 holes and won by one. Day to day, hole to hole, swing to swing, the golfer is never exactly the same. It’s so weird, isn’t it? McIlroy talked about it, the changing golfer, on Sunday night in his alert – spoiler! – Winner’s press conference.
“You have a lot of time to think,” McIlroy said. “You’re out there for a long time. There’s a long time between shots. There’s a long time between rounds. Of all the major sports, I think it’s the most mental, the most mentally challenging. I think it’s hard to stay in the same mental space for four days in a row. I was in a great mental space for the tee shot on the 13th, for example in my great practice round here. Then Thursday, Friday and on saturday, i didn’t smell the freeway.
Let us hear you, brother – let us hear you!
This from a man who chipped twice on Sunday, once from the green and up a lush hill at 13 (for par) and from over the green at 16, also for par. Like, we can relate. But that chip he hit from the right side of the 17th, also par, was off the charts and dead-on perfect. Playing that shot, in that moment, with the world watching? There are about 32 golfers in the world with the skill and mental fortitude to pull it off.
We stand in fear.
He won the tournament with those three shots, along with a gust of wind that helped his third putt thin 15 steps up the hill and bounce forward, not back, into the lake.
Luck Fat luck, indeed. Life requires luck.
In victory, he was asked if he could explain the connection to the life of golf.
“Good things come to those who wait, maybe?” he said in that sweet Irish-song way. “Just keep going. Keep your head down and keep going. If you put in the hours and work at the right things, eventually it will pay off.”
Even if it’s not true, it’s still a good game plan.
ORGAS TWO DOWN ARE CIRCLING. Under the tree, near the club and in the shade, it was almost cool, almost windy, the players and the corpses came, between the jackets and with the lucky badges. Off the course, the tees and tees and greens are baking. Rory McIlroy was in a practice bunker, the glint of white sand in his eyes. This was the first Masters in 15 years without a drop of rain.
For two days, McIlroy could do no wrong, even as he drove it all over the map. Leading by one stroke at the halfway mark. You may remember his early Friday evening golf, dinner on the stove: birdies on 15, 16, 17 and 18. Maybe his psychologist (Bob Rotella) has a name for him. Maybe flow state, peak experience, area. Or, more simply, dreamstate. A golfer in a dream. Anyone in a dream state. We all get there, from time to time. Maybe you once rocked four straight parms. For a minute there, you think you have something on your hands. These moments appear in golf, as they appear most everywhere. You may have heard Bruce Springsteen, last month at the Target Center in Minneapolis, singing Prince’s anthem, “Purple Rain.” At the 5:20 mark, he offers a complete thing. Who-who va-hoo, who-who va-hoo. The band is with him, the backup singers are with him, the house is with him. And so we are with Rory. There’s something about him. All along we know: the moment comes and the moment goes. McIlroy was hitting every note for two days, and then he wasn’t.
The masters. The best three-act show on the world sports stage. Thursday-Friday. Saturday. on sunday. The scene. Players on it. McIlroy bogeyed the par-3 fourth, falling to 10 under. He had one important thing for him: 14 holes to fix the ship.
HE RUNS HIS BUSINESS in the most attractive way. He stopped to look at the leaderboards to see how he was doing against the field – and to see how his friend Shane Lowry was doing. “I was looking at Shane’s result because if I hadn’t won today I would have liked to have put the green jacket on him,” he said. Viewing Shane’s results Viewing other results. “I know it doesn’t serve me,” he said. And yet he does it.
The bogey he made to win was partly terrifying and huge. His shot was so bad, so far right, it was almost okay. As he stood by his ball and bag as his caddy Harry Diamond exited the stage, his chest was heaving and his lips were dry. He hit an uphill 8-iron that went maybe 160 yards and ended up on the front par. left trap (That’s a lot of territory to cover.) His shot into the bunker, thick and juicy, left him with a 12-footer for par. His winning shot was the six-inch shot his daughter could have made.
“I said to myself at 17, ‘I need four good swings,'” McIlroy said. “I made one.”
That girl, Poppy, is 5 years old. At the awards presentation, the first people McIlroy thanked, in a long list of them, were his wife, Erica, and their daughter. He said the Masters was her favorite week of the year, because of the opportunity to play in the Wednesday par-3 event and because of the unlimited ice cream options at the family diner. She put her hands on her face. It was like time stopped. Big Jack won in a row. Sir Nick won back-to-back. Tiger won back-to-back. Now it’s a four. This looks good. We can all use some good, no matter how long it may take.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
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