Rory McIlroy said he felt no different. Fifty-two weeks after he was crushed to the ground in a trance the realization of his biggest dreamhe reached the first tee at Augusta Nationalthis time as Masters champion, and still felt the same rush of emotion he had felt in that box for the past 18 years.
“I was nervous, I was anxious like I always am on that first tee,” McIlroy said after his opening round on Thursday. “I’m grateful to feel the same as I always have. I think it would be upsetting if I didn’t feel that way because it definitely still means something to me.”
The major championship nerves were still there for McIlroy, but he was different. This round was different. In the past, as the pursuit of a career Grand Slam weighed on McIlroy, he routinely succumbed to the pressure early, often pulling out of the Masters on a Thursday before the tournament had really begun. Shaky starts were compounded by mental errors as McIlroy clutched the wheel too hard as he tried to lead into history. On Thursday, McIlroy’s relief from that pressure was palpable. Like the way he played – he co-leads in 5-sub despite just hitting five of 14 fairways — and how he bounced across Augusta National’s perfectly manicured grass while laughing and chatting with 18-year-old amateur Mason Howell.
Howell, who won the US Amateur at the Olympic Club, grew up idolizing McIlroy. McIlroy handed him a ball at the 2016 Tour Championship, which Howell held on to and teed off on Thursday to show the defending champion. Howell swung so hard on his opening shot that his PING hat was thrown off him. His ball sailed left on the ninth fairway. McIlroy’s chip shot also missed left, bounding into the trees. In years past, a tight McIlroy would have marched to his ball, the wheels already turning as the pressure of the Masters consumed him. This time? McIlroy and Howell walked off the tee together, laughing as they began their 18-hole walk in the same direction.
“I was in the first group and I couldn’t feel my arms. It was pretty funny,” Howell, who shot a 5-over 77, said after his round. “To be able to walk off that tee – and I didn’t hit it well, but to walk off that tee laughing with Rory, it was pretty funny.”
McIlroy and Howell both made weak pars on No. 1. Howell chipped it around the par-5 for another par, while McIlroy birdied despite hitting his tee shot into the right trees. Here the freedom of the Master began to appear. With the emerald green anvil hanging over his head, a few bad swings would have caused McIlroy to adjust his game plan, go conservative and just try to stay alive. That fear was a shackle.
Now, forever a Masters champion, those mental shackles were gone.
“I’d say I didn’t hit the ball very well the first seven holes, and sometimes that’s where it would make me try and guide a little bit, and I just kept swinging, just trusting that I’m going to find it eventually,” McIlroy said.
“I just believed that eventually I’m going to start taking some good swings. So that was a little different.”
McIlroy bogeyed No. 3, but then hit a brilliant, choked 3-wood into the green on No. 8 and made birdie. It’s the kind of shot McIlroy would have missed most when he was still trying to walk with the world on his shoulders. He birdied No. 9 and was back at 1 under. All the while, he chatted with 18-year-old Howell like it was just a regular Thursday and not in the place that tormented him. The ghosts are already gone.
“We talked a little bit throughout the day. You know, it was great to pick his brain a little bit. You know, just asking him what’s coming up and then how he’s hitting the ball so far, stuff like that,” Howell said, joking about the distance quest.
McIlroy opened the back nine with three straight birdies, including a superb save on No. 12 after he pulled the ball left. He wasn’t playing his best, but he was going to a place where he knows he can come back for good. He was patient. In the past, McIlroy would try to push the case and bring in magic that didn’t exist on the day, leading to sometimes disastrous results. On Thursday, he took his meds, let things come to him, and capitalized when they arrived.
He birdied 13, 14 and 15 to join Sam Burns at the top of the leaderboard and then headed home as he joked with Howell as the club came up. He took a day where he didn’t have his A-game and turned it into a lead in the first round; a day that should have been 70 or 72 and turned him into 67. Because the real fear, the anxiety that what he wanted would never come, has evaporated. All that remains are good nerves and the possibility of what Rory McIlroy might do for an encore.
“I said this when I came in on Tuesday, I think winning a Masters makes it easier to win a second one. I do,” McIlroy said. “It’s hard to say because there are still shots out there that you feel a little tight, and you just have to stand up and commit to making a good swing and not worry about where it’s really going.
“I think it’s easier for me to take those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know I can go into the Champions League locker room and put on my green jacket and drink a Coke Zero at the end of the day.”
McIlroy and Howell both made it to par on 18, shared another smile and shook hands. They will have one more walk around Augusta National tomorrow. Howell’s goal? Hit more greens and tighten the button on his hat, which came off a few more times after the first tee.
For McIlroy, who is trying to become just the fourth player in history to repeat as Masters champion, the freedom from last year’s landmark victory makes him look like an unbreakable player at Augusta National — a player finally unburdened by the weight of expectations that held him back on a course designed for his game.
“I think it took me a while to get to the point where if I focus on the process and the little goals of not mixing up the mistakes, like today, hitting it into the trees and trying to be a hero, making good decisions, thinking my way around the golf course, I think those are the expectations I have for myself,” McIlroy said. And if I can live up to those expectations, then the results and outcomes should take care of themselves.
They did on Thursday, where Rory McIlroy finally showed us what his Masters freedom looks like.
