Whatever happens over the next few weeks, there will inevitably be a number of golf fans who cannot help themselves from backing Rory McIlroy to win the Masters next month.
Rory McIlroy is looking to be on course to go into the Masters as the favourite. While Scottie Scheffler has, so far, failed to win in 2025, McIlroy has two victories – winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the first time in his career, as well as the Players Championship.
Most fans will have seen McIlroy look better than he has done at times over the last few months. It is probably fair to say that he is yet to reach top gear. However, there is something different about the 35-year-old this year.
McIlroy has added new shots to his game, with his vastly improved knockdown shots helping him get across the line at TPC Sawgrass. And while he will probably not say it, it really does feel that he is looking to give himself the tools to tackle Augusta National.
How Rory McIlroy can be inspired by what Tiger Woods did before the 2000 Open Championship
But of course, the problem for McIlroy is that talent is not the reason he has not won a major for more than a decade. He seems to have tried all kind of ways to prepare for the four biggest events over the years, so there will be plenty of intrigue surrounding his performance at the Texas Children’s Houston Open in the coming days.
Perhaps there is one way of playing at Memorial Park which McIlroy should try – given how it worked for Tiger Woods nearly 25 years ago ahead of The Open Championship at the Old Course.
Speaking to The Golfer’s Journal late last year about the Tiger Slam, writer Kevin Cook explained how Woods largely sacrificed his chances of winning on the PGA Tour specifically to prepare himself for St Andrews.
“I think it was telling about him, you’re playing a Western Open and of course, you’d rather play well than not play well, but what mattered to him was Scotland is coming up, so he’s going to hit some low runners that were ‘inappropriate’ as Butch Harmon put it for the particular tournament he was in,” he said.
“But that’s how determined he is, and I thought it was telling that when Tiger describes that – he’s asked, ‘well, if you’re going to practice playing the Old Course, just go out on the range and hit a bunch of stingers, hit low shots left and right’, and he says, ‘it’s not the same, if you don’t do it in competition, it does not feel the same’. And that’s why he would do it in a PGA Tour event and finish 20th instead of first and be pleased by that because it helped him max out his game as nobody did, since Nicklaus I think, for the majors. He was ready when the majors came around, and that was one of the great skills he had.”
The shots needed at Augusta National which could help Rory McIlroy win the Masters
Obviously, the contrast to playing at The Open is much greater. But Augusta National certainly asks unique questions of those who traipse down its fairways.
Very few shots are played off flat lies, while there is something different about the sand used at Augusta which means that the ball seems to be swallowed up anytime it finds the trap. And being selective when deciding to be aggressive towards flags is so important.
McIlroy showed at Sawgrass that he is ready to take his foot off the pedal when the situation requires. And in the coming days, he should perhaps have more than one eye on the arsenal of shots that he is likely to need at Augusta.
It may not do much for his chances at the Houston Open, but he just needs to remember that few hold a tied 23rd finish at the Western Open against Tiger Woods when suggesting that his 2000 season is one of the greatest sporting feats of all-time.
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