Rory McIlroy now has the skill which made Tiger Woods better than everyone and it helped him win The Masters

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Rory McIlroy must have an incredibly surreal feeling at the start of the week, with his victory at The Masters removing a very specific burden he had had for 11 years – and would only get one opportunity a year at lifting.

It still feels incredible to label Rory McIlroy The Masters champion. What happened on Sunday at Augusta National will live long in the memory of all golf fans who were watching on.

McIlroy won and lost the green jacket on numerous occasions over the course of the day. Thankfully, when all was said and done, it was McIlroy who had Scottie Scheffler presenting him with the famous garment.

It may have felt as if McIlroy was doing his best to throw it away in the final round, while he also seemed to play his way out of contention with how he finished on Thursday. But this really does seem to be a different Rory McIlroy this year.

The skill Rory McIlroy has gained which Tiger Woods had

The 35-year-old has added shots to his game, enabling him to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Players Championship while well short of his best. And his week at The Masters encapsulated that; with McIlroy continually flipping between the sublime and ridiculous.

But there was a reason that he found that final gear he needed to win. And speaking on the Sky Sports Golf Podcast, Nick Dougherty suggested that McIlroy has now picked up a skill which only Tiger Woods has seemingly had in recent years.

“His thinking, I think, will be a big asset there [at Oakmont]. Testament to Rory, like Tiger, he’s smart enough to go, ‘all the people that came before me, he was good at that, and I loved the way he strategised’. And he picked the best and it made Tiger better than all of them because you add it all up and it’s the sum of its part. And he’s doing that, and he’s open enough to not only think it, but say it. ‘Scottie’s strategy, yeah I need to start being more measured’. That’s going to be a great asset at that major championship, but all of them to be fair,” he said.

“He’s great when he’s chasing, it’s why he’s got the most come from behind wins. You say to him you must push that accelerator as hard as you can now, he’s like, ‘I’m all in’. But defending and plotting and knowing when to push, when to sit back, like he did the other day, knowing on that 66 off the back of the disappointment, his mindset going out for that second day was like, ‘woah, woah, woah, woah, I don’t need to get them back straight away after two doubles in the last four. Just gently, gently’. And he did, he waited, he was patient. He got the 66, he backed it up with another 66, now he’s got a green jacket.”

How Jack Nicklaus helped Rory McIlroy win The Masters

McIlroy definitely appears to have tapped into what the best players in the game’s history have done to make sure that they get across the line on the biggest stages.

Of course, you could look at the US Open last year and see it as a dramatic turnaround since then, but McIlroy has been knocking on the door for several years now – all the way back to The Open Championship in 2022.

And it was telling that Jack Nicklaus seemed to be so confident when tipping McIlroy to win the green jacket on Thursday, as he explained why he was so convinced.

“I think the same as you two guys. I think it’s about time that Rory won. I sat down with Rory last week and we had lunch, and we were talking, and I said, Rory, I know you prepared for Augusta; tell me how you’re going to play the golf course,” he said.

“We went through it shot for shot. And he got done with the round, and I didn’t open my mouth. And I said, well, I wouldn’t change a thing. That’s exactly the way I would try to play the golf course.

“The discipline to do that is — the discipline is what Rory has lacked in my opinion. He’s got all the shots. He’s got all the game. He certainly is as talented as anybody in the game.”

McIlroy wondered what he was going to be asked in press conferences now he has finally completed the career grand slam. The obvious answer is surely which legends of the game is he going to be stood alongside for major titles by the time his incredible career comes to an end?