It is a surprise that Rory McIlroy was not left speechless after winning The Masters on Sunday, after one of the most remarkable days Augusta National has ever seen.
Rory McIlroy would have dreamt of the moment he won The Masters for most of his life. The first major of the year is the most unique, with the event returning to the same hallowed grounds every single year.
While that is a blessing for many, it can be a curse for those who have not enjoyed much success within the Georgia pines. And McIlroy certainly fell into that latter category – until this past week.
McIlroy has been a Masters win away from completing the career grand slam since 2014. And yet, he has rarely come close to winning in that time. He finished second to Scottie Scheffler in 2022 without ever looking like he was genuinely in contention.
Trevor Immelman surprised by Rory McIlroy’s comment after winning The Masters
Of course, it is not just Augusta which has given the 35-year-old headaches over the last decade. McIlroy’s last major win came in 2014. So not only was he feeling the pressure of winning the career grand slam, but also a first major of any kind in 11 years.
That explains the reaction to making the winning putt, with McIlroy collapsing to the ground on the 18th green. But it seems that pain may have run deeper.
Speaking on Fried Egg Golf, Trevor Immelman suggested that he was surprised by how much the near miss in 2011 – when McIlroy led by four shots with 18 holes to play – had stayed with McIlroy.
“What was quite fascinating to me, Jim Nantz and I sit down in Butler Cabin; our little studio, our little booth is down in the back of Butler Cabin, right next to where you guys watch the presentation. So that’s the room we sit in,” he said.
“And I had that line at the end when he reacted and he went down to the ground and you could see he was so emotional about it, almost looked like he was struggling to breathe at one point, and I had a line that I threw out there, something like that’s 11 years of built up emotion coming out right there. And then he came in and Jim mentioned that to him in the presentation, and when he said, ‘oh no, that’s actually 14 years, since 2011’, I was like, wow, when we think of Rory we think he wears his emotions on his sleeve, he’s the most open and honest golfer out there, he answers every question, he tells you exactly how he feels, maybe even at times to his own detriment because he contradicts himself because he’s been around for so long and his positions have changed – people call him a flip-flopper but it’s like hey, this guy’s been around for almost two decades, he’s allowed to change his opinion as he matures. But what I realised was, even though he had won four majors since, he had won 29 PGA Tour events, probably 20 DP World Tour events, this guy’s won all over the world. So even though he’s done all of that, that 2011 Masters was a thorn in his side.
“It was the thing that has made him get up in the morning for the last 14 years, and that to me, we learned something about him that we didn’t know. Because a lot of people would say, okay well he choked that Masters in 2011, but then he went to the next US Open and won by, I don’t know how many he won by, six or eight, something like that, and they were like, oh he’s put the demons to bed. No, no, no, this has been bothering him for 14 years. That to me was something like, wow, I just learned something about Rory McIlroy.”
The claim Rory McIlroy made ahead of the 2012 Masters which proved to be wide of the mark
It is understandable that Immelman expected the scars from 2011 to have healed. He won the US Open in the next major by some distance. And that period of McIlroy’s career suggested that he was on course to become one of the most successful golfers of all-time.
But there was a claim McIlroy made ahead of the 2012 Masters about how he handled that disappointment the previous year which suggests that the pain of what happened in 2011 probably built up over time.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed, McIlroy suggested that he expected to have plenty more chances to earn that green jacket.
“I’m not sure. I mean, I think as golfers we lose more than we win. We only win a number of times, and every other time we are not lifting a trophy, it’s not a failure but you don’t win, so you sort of get used to maybe disappointments or‑‑ I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just got the mind‑set that I handle it a little better than others and feel like at that point I had many more chances to win a major or win a Masters.
Yeah, it wasn’t the end of the world. Again, it’s only golf. It’s not like anyone died out there last Sunday,” he said.
In truth, The Masters was the one major where he never actually came that close to winning – when you consider his talent. That perhaps helps explain why he found Sunday so difficult.
But suddenly, the painful memories from all of those missed chances – from 2011 – have been completely banished.
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