“I think I’ve made it clear over the past two years, I don’t think it’s something for me.”
Rory McIlroy has no idea how the rumor started. But he put an end to it quickly.
Speaking with Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis on the range at the 2024 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, Lewis asked McIlroy, the world No. 2, about rumors that came to a head Monday saying McIlroy was in talks to join LIV Golf for upwards of $850 million as well as an ownership stake in the league.
However, those couldn’t be further from the truth, McIlroy said.
“I’ve never been offered a number from LIV, and I’ve never contemplated going to LIV,” McIlroy told Lewis. “I think I’ve made it clear over the past two years, I don’t think it’s something for me. Doesn’t mean that I judge people that have went and played over there. I think one of the things that I’ve realized over the past two years is people can make their own decisions for whatever they think is best for themselves. Who are we to judge them for that? Personally, for me, my future is here on the PGA Tour, and it’s never been any different.”
During the Masters, LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman was spotted multiple times following McIlroy’s group, including some reports stating Norman trying to get McIlroy’s attention walking between holes. As no phones are allowed on the grounds at Augusta National, there is no video of the reported incidents.
Exclusive: Rory McIlroy tells @ToddLewisGC that LIV Golf rumors are false and, "I will play the PGA Tour for the rest of my career." Tune into Golf Today at 5 p.m. EDT for more. pic.twitter.com/PIPAWMIWGh
McIlroy’s stance has softened on LIV Golf in recent months, perhaps adding fuel to the fire he could soon be switching circuits. But McIlroy, who’s in the middle of playing four straight PGA Tour events, quickly dispelled the rumor.
“Over the last two years, there has been so many rumors of guys… and I think the one thing I’ve realized as well is guys need to keep an open mind. And I’m sure there’s guys still playing on the PGA Tour who have talked to guys from LIV and had offers and whatever,” McIlroy said. “It’s never even been a conversation for us. It’s unfortunate that we have to deal with it, and this is the state our game is in. I’m obviously here today, I’m playing this PGA Tour event next week and I will play the PGA Tour for the rest of my career.”
Ever since the emergence of LIV, McIlroy and Norman have been diametrically opposed.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Ever since the emergence of LIV Golf, Rory McIlroy and Greg Norman have been diametrically opposed in their view of professional golf.
McIlroy served as the PGA Tour’s unofficial spokesman while Norman joined the Saudi payroll as LIV CEO with an unlimited budget to make his longtime dream of a new world order for golf a reality. They butted heads making headlines through a war of words, with McIlroy famously declaring that “Greg must go,” and throwing shade on Norman when he won the 2022 RBC Canadian Open for his 21st Tour title, or as he put it, “one more than someone else.” But when it comes to the majors and the Masters in particular, McIlroy might look in a mirror and see Norman’s sad reflection.
While McIlroy’s major total of four majors by age 25 is twice the haul that Norman collected, Norman was the dominant player of his era and shoulda-coulda-woulda won seven or eight majors. He dominated the game as the best driver of his generation much like McIlroy. The one major his game was designed for was supposed to be Augusta National. As the years passed by and Norman experienced his share of heartbreaking misses, he faced the inevitable question of how does he not win? Whenever McIlroy shows up at Augusta now, he faces the same relentless questioning in the lead up to April.
Both also endured their career low points at the Masters – Norman blowing a six-stroke lead heading into the final round in 1996 and McIlroy shooting 80 to squander the 54-hole lead in 2011. Both ended with the loser needing a hug – Norman from Nick Faldo, who lapped him with a 67to win the title and McIlroy from CBS’s Peter Kostis before he gave a heartfelt interview.
“Greg in 1996 was hard to watch,” said Butch Harmon, Norman’s coach at the time. “That was the longest day I’ve ever spent on a golf course. But it’s a cruel game and it will get you.”
As McIlroy attempts to complete the career Grand Slam for a 10th time this week and end a major-less streak nearing a decade in length, he’s facing his Norman complex by turning to, of all people, Norman’s old coach. He went to see Harmon in Las Vegas two weeks ago for a lesson.
“Rory wants it so badly that he can’t get out of his own way,” Harmon said. “I was trying to help him to relax, don’t be so aggressive in the first round. Just go shoot 70, put yourself in the mix and see what happens. He gets so amped up here because it’s the last one he hasn’t won. He understands it but understanding it and being able to do it are two different things.”
Rory McIlroy hits from the fairway on No. 10 during a practice round for the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports)
Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee noted McIlroy’s struggles out of the gate – in his last five Masters, McIlroy averages 73.8 in the first round.
“That speaks to not being in the right place mentally,” Chamblee said. “But whenever he is in a good place — when he does manage to get himself into a good place, say in 2018, he was second after 54 holes, he shot 74 Sunday. In 2016 he was second after 36 holes, and he shot 77 Saturday.
“He plays his best when it means the least, and he plays his worst when it means the most. Now, we can dive in and parse out technical reasons why that is, but the larger landscape is it’s just mental. I think him trying to get over that hurdle and become the sixth person to win the Grand Slam is mentally the most compelling thing that will take place at the Masters.”
Harmon has covered this territory before and spoke to McIlroy about the importance of being aggressive when he should be aggressive and conservative when he should be conservative. Just because he’s got six gears doesn’t mean he has to always be in sixth gear. Follow that mantra, the way another former Harmon world No. 1 did back in the day, and he’ll see Woods’s visage in the mirror and have a good chance to win.
“I explained to him that Greg was so amped up that he almost couldn’t play,” Harmon said of the fateful final round of the 1996 Masters. “You can’t tee off on Thursday and be aggressive on every shot. You can’t do that here. He has to let it happen.”
When Woods was asked Tuesday if he felt McIlroy would join him and Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus in exclusive company, he said, “No question, he’ll do it at some point. He’s just – Rory’s too talented, too good. He’s going to be playing this event for a very long time. He’ll get it done. It’s just a matter of when.”
But superstars from Lee Trevino to Tom Watson to Arnold Palmer fell short of the career Grand Slam. McIlroy has another chance this week to soar into the company of the all-time greats. Or he can go down alongside Norman as one of the greats who could only get one arm in a Green Jacket. Whose reflection will McIlroy see this week when he looks in the mirror?
McCarthy posted a 28 on the back to overcome a six-stroke deficit, but made a fatal mistake in a playoff.
For those who have followed Akshay Bhatia’s decorated golf career, the fact that the 22-year-old phenom captured his second PGA Tour title on Sunday — earning his first berth into a major tournament — might come as no surprise.
But the way Bhatia won, running away from most of the field early and then outlasting a wily veteran in a playoff at the 2024 Valero Texas Open to earn a spot in next week’s Masters? That certainly might have the golf world doing a collective double-take.
Bhatia finished off one of the most impressive and improbable wire-to-wire victories in recent memory, fending off a heroic charge by runner-up Denny McCarthy on Sunday afternoon, and finding his way into the winner’s circle at the TPC San Antonio Oaks Course.
McCarthy forced a playoff with an incredible string of eight birdies over the final nine holes, and after he buried a seventh straight birdie putt on 18, it appeared he might be poised for his first PGA Tour victory.
Bhatia responded with a huge birdie putt of his own on the tournament’s 72nd hole, and then watched as McCarthy made a surprising and fatal mistake by chunking a wedge from 99 yards out on the playoff hole — and splashing it into a creek.
Winning is hard.
Denny McCarthy has found the water from 99 yards out on the first playoff hole. pic.twitter.com/41GpsUEvEZ
“Wish I could have had that wedge shot back there. I backed off a couple times,” McCarthy said. “There was a bug on my ball and some noise in the stands and a bug jumped back on my ball. I probably should have backed away again, but I thought I could kind of not let it distract me and maybe it did a little.
“Maybe a learning experience for me, but all in all I handled myself really well today.”
Adding a little more drama, Bhatia then asked for his shoulder to be taped up by a trainer before his approach on the playoff hole, telling those on hand that he pulled it out of its socket during a fist-pump celebration after hitting the putt on 18.
But he safely found the green and then dropped a six-footer to earn the trip back to Augusta.
The field for the 88th Masters Tournament is set. See you back at Augusta National, Akshay. #themasters
“Denny played unbelievable. It’s tough, he’s one of the best putters out here. Yeah, it’s scary how good he played. To shoot 8 under on the back is like unheard of,” Bhatia said. “You think he might miss one, but it was awesome to see that. It made me feel like, OK, I really need to step up here, I can’t just cruise in. I did such a good job just coming out, sticking to my game plan.
“I still had to shoot 5 under to just get into a playoff, so it was pretty crazy.”
At the ripe age of 15, Bhatia won the 2017 Junior PGA Championship, breaking a course record at the Country Club of St. Albans, and cruising to a three-stroke victory. He added a number of major junior events a year later, including the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and the Rolex Tournament of Champions.
Akshay Bhatia talks with his caddie before teeing off at the first hole during the final round of the Valero Texas Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports
He later became the third-youngest player to win a Korn Ferry Tour event, when he took home the title at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic, with only Sungjae Im and Jason Day doing so at a younger age.
None of this has fazed Bhatia, who continues to work hard, keep his nose to the grindstone and focus on the next major hurdle.
“I’m just true to myself. I’ve never had an easy life growing up, so anytime anyone sees that, oh, this kid’s making a ton of money, he’s playing on the PGA Tour, he’s won on the PGA Tour, that’s just not it,” Bhatia said after his third round of play, “There’s so much more to it than just the golf. For guys coming up from PGA Tour U or Nick Dunlap, for instance, winning on the PGA Tour, like there’s going to be a lot for them to learn and hopefully being peers with them, it kind of can help them along the way and kind of grow up faster.”
Bhatia conducted himself like a veteran in the latter stages on Sunday, as he had a four-stroke lead heading into Sunday, pushed that advantage to six after the fourth hole, but then watched as McCarthy put on an impressive display on the back at the Greg Norman-designed course.
Denny McCarthy hits a tee shot on the tenth hole during the final round of the Valero Texas Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports
McCarthy’s birdie barrage started just after the turn as he knocked off strokes on Nos. 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 to pull within one.
On the 17th, a drivable par-4, McCarthy missed right in the rough, while Bhatia dropped his in a bunker off to the right side of the hole. Both players put their second shots to within five feet, but Bhatia missed his putt, marking the first time in 52 times during the tournament that he missed from that distance.
Both players made birdies on the 18th hole, then Bhatia capitalized on McCarthy’s playoff miscue to take the $1.65 million first prize and the final spot in the 2024 Masters.
“t’s cool. It’s a dream come true. I didn’t know what to expect this week,” Bhatia said. “This is just kind of a week where I played a couple times and I was a little more comfortable, I think. I wrote on my wrist today “W-T-W,” which is wire-to-wire. Just kind of pictured a straight wire from the first hole to the 72nd hole and I just tried to really stick to that, and my caddie did an awesome job reminding me of that.”
As for McCarthy, he’ll take plenty away from this week, even though he missed out on the hardware.
“I’m hitting the ball really nice, chipping and putting really nice. Just kind of committing to my process and freeing it up and not really caring where it goes,” McCarthy said. “I did that really well all week, especially today also, Sunday afternoon, last group. It stings right now, but I found a lot of good things in my game this week mentally and physically, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the year.”
“I thought the tee box was going to point you out towards that right bunker,” McIlroy said.
Tweaks to the golf course have become the norm at Augusta National in recent years, and the 88th Masters Tournament will mark the third straight tournament in which the course has seen some minor adjustments.
While many thought the different angle would make a dramatic difference, Rory McIlroy said prior to the Valero Texas Open that a recent scouting trip to Augusta had him underwhelmed by the change.
“I thought it was going to be a different visual than it used to be,” McIlroy said. “I thought whenever someone said they moved it back and to the left, I thought the tee box was going to point you out towards that right bunker and you’re going to have to hit more of a draw around the corner. I mean, if you didn’t know, you would think you were on the same tee box, it doesn’t look that much different.
“You can still see left of the bunker and I thought it was really going to force you to hit some sort of draw shot around the corner, but you can still, you can still hit a straight away shot and keep it left of the trap. It’s not as drastic of a change as I thought it was going to be.”
Jon Rahm surveys the no. 2 green during a practice round for The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Network
The move was meant to help toughen up what has been one of the easiest holes on the golf course. No. 2 was ranked as the least difficult on the course during the 2023 Masters Tournament with a 4.637 scoring average. Its 4.775 cumulative scoring average since 1942 ranks 17 overall (just ahead of No. 13), with a high of 4.996 (1957) and a low of 4.467 (2020).
McIlroy noticed changes on every other hole through the first half-dozen at Augusta National.
“There’s new greens on 2, 4 and 6,” hesaid. “There’s like a back middle hole location on 2, there’s a slightly bigger area in there where they can sort of move that around a little bit.
“On 4, they’ve sort of made the back right section a little bit bigger for an extra pin position there.
“And then 6 is different, like the top right plateau is definitely bigger and then they’ve flattened out a section in the back left to maybe have an extra hole location there, too. Those are the three changes.”
Will Cheney of the Augusta Chronicle contributed to this report.
Jimmy Walker hit a nice third shot into the par-5 eighth at TPC San Antonio during the second round of the Valero Texas Open on Friday and left himself a seven-foot birdie putt.
When Golf Channel panned to Walker to show his attempt, Smylie Kaufman was hosting his ‘Happy Hour’ segment with Rory McIlroy in the guest chair. Walker took the putter back, made his stroke and was disappointed when his ball failed to fall right at the cup, leaving him a three-foot par putt behind the hole.
But then he did something Kaufman and McIlroy weren’t expecting.
After taking a step towards his ball, Walker snapped the putter head right off the shaft.
“We’ve all been there,” McIlroy said.
“I must say, of things I expected to happen just then, I don’t think I expected the club to snap in half,” Kaufman responded.
“I didn’t think Jimmy was that strong,” McIlroy joked.
“If the numbers aren’t as good, it’s an argument to still say we need to put everyone back together.”
SAN ANTONIO — The fatigue is real. Talk of growing the game has officially been put on the backburner.
In the aftermath of nearly two years of PGA Tour-LIV Golf feuding, Rory McIlroy said Wednesday he isn’t surprised that many golf fans have become disenchanted, but he sounded more than just mildly concerned about the ramifications that appear to be manifesting in recent viewership numbers.
Speaking in San Antonio as he prepares for his last tuneup before the 2024 Masters, McIlroy said the raw data from PGA Tour telecasts is alarming, as one in every five former TV viewers has decided to shut the product off.
“I know this isn’t a be-all, end-all, but if you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year, they’re down 20 percent across the board,” he said. “That’s a fifth. That’s big. I would say the numbers on LIV aren’t great either in terms of the people tuning in. I just think with the fighting and everything that’s went on over the past couple years, people are just getting really fatigued of it and it’s turning people off men’s professional golf, and that’s not a good thing for anyone.”
While the four-time major champ is focused on his own game, especially in light of his failure to crack the top 15 in any of his first five starts of 2024, he’ll be keeping an eye on how TV viewers respond to the first major of the year in Augusta. But then he believes an even truer indication will come from the other three majors on the schedule.
“It’s going to be really interesting to see how the four major championships do, or even the three because put Augusta aside, I think that sort of lives in its own world,” he said. “It will be really interesting to see how the major championship numbers fare compared to the other bigger events because there’s an argument to be made if the numbers are better and you’ve got all the best players in the world playing, then there’s an argument to say ‘OK, we need to get this thing back together.’
“But on the flip side, if the numbers aren’t as good, it’s an argument to still say we need to put everyone back together because people are losing interest in the game even if they don’t want to tune in to the four major championships.”
Rory McIlroy plays a shot on the fifth hole during the first round of the 2024 Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches at PGA National. (Photo: Brennan Asplen/Getty Images)
Many assumed that additional exposure to the game through PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ and other online avenues would lead to a rise in viewership numbers, all while more people are playing the game in record numbers and consuming more golf content online.
But McIlroy, who in the Netflix documentary “Full Swing” described himself as the closest player on Tour to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, said recently that it’s been difficult to see some of the world’s best players not matching up on a consistent basis.
“That’s where I said like things need a correction and things are unsustainable because I’m close with NBC and the people that really care about these things and the people that tune in to watch golf,” he said. “You know, 20 percent’s a pretty jarring number this year.”
McIlroy has a new club in the bag the week before he goes for the Career Grand Slam once again at the Masters.
When it comes to drivers, Rory McIlroy has been more than willing to upgrade into TaylorMade’s newest, latest and greatest every year since he signed an endorsement deal with the company is 2017. Irons, however, are another story.
The four-time major winner has used a prototype set of RORS Proto irons fitted with Project X 7.0 shafts for nearly all his rounds, occasionally adding a TaylorMade P·760 2-, 3- or 4-iron based on the course setup and conditions. Those clubs, which Jon Rahm played when he was a TaylorMade staff player, were released in 2018, so it was noteworthy when McIlroy was spotted on the range preparing for the start of the Valero Texas Open with a prototype TaylorMade 4-iron.
McIlroy was asked about the club during his pre-tournament press conference.
“So after I went to Vegas, I went out to The Kingdom [TaylorMade’s test center in Carlsbad, California] for two days. I needed to get into a fresh set of irons, my irons were like two years old maybe, so they were getting a little worn,” McIlroy explained. “They just produced these couple of proto, I guess like are they the MC replacements maybe, I think? I’m not sure what they’re actually going to be called. Yeah, I have no idea.”
Commenting on how the 4-iron played, McIlroy said, “They performed really well. It’s just as fast as the 760 that I was using. Launch is a little higher actually, which was surprising, and it’s just sometimes I felt like when I hit my 5-iron in the blade and then the 4-iron in the 760, it was such a different feel. To go from a 5-iron now to that 4-iron, it feels a little closer to what I feel in the 5-iron. So just a little bit more responsive, but didn’t lose any performance from it, which is great. Yeah, it will be in the bag this week.”
As a true muscleback blade, McIlroy’s RORS Proto irons have extra mass low in the head, behind the area where he makes contact with the ball, but his prototype 4-iron is clearly a better player’s cavity back iron. The current P•7MC has a very similar shape and similar milling design on the back of the head, as well.
McIlroy’s prototype is fitted with the same Project X 7.0 Rifle shaft and Golf Pride MCC grip as his other irons and wedges.
McIlroy has been coached for nearly all of his career by Northern Ireland-based Michale Bannon.
Does Rory McIlroy have a new swing coach?
Reports began circulating on Wednesday based off a social media post by a journalist, who covers other sports but not golf, that McIlroy has begun working with famed teacher Butch Harmon.
Golfweek can confirm that McIlroy took a lesson from Harmon a week ago in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean he’s parted ways with his longtime coach Michael Bannon and is now working with Harmon, the son of 1948 Masters champion Claude Harmon.
Speaking on the “I Can Fly” podcast, McIlroy said that he took a lesson with Harmon on March 27.
“I went last week to see Butch Harmon for a golf lesson. I’ve seen him over the years, like once every few years I’ll say, ‘Hey, Butch, can I come see you and you can take a look and see what you think.’”
On the podcast, McIlroy, 34, recounts that as he was leaving for the airport, his three-year-old daughter Poppy asked him, “Dada, where are you going?”
McIlroy said he was going for a golf lesson, which drew this classic kids say the darnedest thing response: “She said, ‘Dada, you already know how to play golf,’” McIlroy said. “That’s probably the best piece of advice I’ve gotten in the last three years.”
Dipping into the golf world with a scoop:
I’m told Rory McIlroy has begun work with Butch Harmon.
Harmon, “the best golf instructor in the world,” worked with Tiger Woods from 1993-2004, Phil Mickelson from 2007-2015, and recently helped Rickie Fowler find his swing again.
The 80-year-old Harmon, who coached the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Greg Norman during the prime of their careers, retired from traveling to PGA Tour events but still works with the likes of Rickie Fowler and Maverick McNealy, who visit him at his Las Vegas facility.
McIlroy has been coached for nearly all of his career by Bannon, who is based in Northern Ireland and travels to the U.S. to work with McIlroy when needed. McIlroy spent a brief stint with Pete Cowen in 2021 ahead of the Masters that year but returned to Bannon several months later.
McIlroy won the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic in January, but has failed to record a top-10 finish this season on the PGA Tour. If he fails to do so this week in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, it will mark the first time he’s headed into the Masters without one since 2010.
McIlroy’s iron game has been a point of emphasis of late. He has slipped from eighth in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green (+0.721) last season to 119th in the category this season (-0.176).
McIlroy needs to win the Masters to become just the sixth golfer – and first since Woods – to complete the career Grand Slam. The Masters begins on April 11.
On Wednesday, prior to the Valero Texas Open, McIlroy confirmed that he did spend time with Harmon in Las Vegas, a recurring theme throughout his career.
“I met Butch when I was 14 years old, so we’ve always had a good relationship. If there’s one guy that I want to go and get a second opinion from, it’s him. Yeah, I think just after The Players, I was just sort of struggling through that Florida Swing with my swing and with some of the misses I was having with my irons, I just thought to myself I’m obviously missing something here and I just would love to go and get a second opinion and have him take a look, a second set of eyes,” McIlroy said.
“The one thing with Butch is you go spend time with him and you’re always going to feel better about yourself at the end of it whether you’re hitting it better or not. He’s sort of half golf coach, half psychologist in a way,” McIlroy said. “It’s fun to go out there, I went and spent probably four hours with him in Vegas. He said a couple of things to me that resonated. It’s the same stuff that I’ve been trying to do with my coach Michael, but he sort of just said it in a different way that maybe hit home with me a little bit more.
“Yeah, it was a really worthwhile trip and I feel like I’ve done some good work after that. As I said, this is a good week to see where that work has gotten me.”
Golfweek’s Tim Schmitt contributed to this report.
For Rory McIlroy, he’s about to embark on his 16th attempt to win a Green Jacket at the Masters and his 10th try to complete the career Grand Slam.
But doing the same thing over and over is the definition of insanity, so McIlroy intends to shake things up again this year. Golfweek has learned McIlroy, who reportedly made a scouting trip Monday to play Augusta National, won’t return to the course until late Tuesday of tournament week and plans to skip the Par 3 Contest on Wednesday.
Last week, McIlroy participated in a small gathering with members of the Apogee Club, a private club with courses being built in Hobe Sound, Florida, and played with his TGL team member Keegan Bradley. During the round, which was taped for possible inclusion in season 3 of “Full Swing,” the Netflix documentary, and by Golf Channel for a future show on the hi-tech indoor TGL debuting in 2025, Bradley asked McIlroy when he was going to get to Augusta National ahead of the Masters. McIlroy said not until late Tuesday and explained to Bradley the lead-up to the start of the Masters drags too long so he intends to arrive later than he ever has before. (It’s not as if he doesn’t know how the course plays at this point.) In previous years, McIlroy has talked about killing time by doing puzzles at his rental house, and he’s also taught himself to juggle. He’s still trying to put the pieces together for what constitutes a winning approach to the Masters and ending his major-less skid, which dates to the 2014 PGA Championship.
Padraig Harrington once noted with all of McIlroy’s vast talent, all he really had to do was be patient.
“All Rory has to worry about is peaking the right weeks and his game is plenty good enough,” he said. “Wouldn’t you love to just be patient and wait for those weeks to turn up?”
Well, McIlroy has good reason to have become impatient. Those weeks of brilliance haven’t been turning up of late. While McIlroy did successfully defend his title in the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic in January, he has been mired in an early-season swoon (for him). McIlroy has failed to record a top-10 finish this season on the PGA Tour. If he fails to do so this week in San Antonio at the Valero Texas Open, it will mark the first time he’s headed into the Masters without one since 2010.
ESPN’s Andy North walked with McIlroy the last three rounds at the Players last month and rated his iron play this season as below average.
“His iron play this year has not been anywhere near to his standard. He had a great day with his irons on Thursday that week, and he thought he’d gotten over the hump,” North said. “That’s concerning to me, and I think that’s one of the reasons he’s playing this week. He wants to see if what he’s been working on the past couple weeks is what he wants to do.
“But to win at Augusta, you go back and look at the winners, everybody talks about putting and driving length and all that kind of stuff. Who hits the most greens has a great chance to win,” he added noting that Tiger Woods topped the field in greens in regulation in 2019 as did Scottie Scheffler in 2022.
McIlroy has top 10s in seven of the past 10 years at Augusta National but despite finishing a distant second in 2022, he really hasn’t been in the trophy hunt since playing alongside eventual champion Patrick Reed in 2018. Last year, he said he felt as confident as ever and flamed out early on Friday with a missed cut.
Fellow ESPN commentator Curtis Strange said he had talked to McIlroy’s mental coach Bob Rotella and the other reason McIlroy is playing the week before the Masters this year is simple: to keep his mind off next week.
“I like that he’s playing this week,” said Strange. “Bob said the main thing for Rory next week is to stay calm and cool. He had this phrase, ‘Mind has to be stronger than the swing,’ and I think in Rory’s case that’s exactly right because he does have some baggage coming into here because he knows he could have won here a couple of times but he knows he has the game as well.”
Added ESPN’s lead anchor Scott Van Pelt, “It’s a challenge to figure out how do you thread the needle? And maybe there’s no recipe because it’s hard to win this one. If he does, everyone’s going to say, well, of course. But if he doesn’t, then you join the list of guys going how the hell did I not win that tournament?”
Might as well shake things up in the lead up to the Masters. He’ll arrive later and take a more business-like approach with one goal in mind: to ensure the mind is stronger than the swing.
One final chance for someone to punch their Masters ticket.
With one event left before the first men’s major championship of the year, plenty of players are making the trek to San Antonio, Texas, to get their final preparations in or try to get in the field at Augusta National.
The field was announced Friday for the 2024 Valero Texas Open at TPC San Antonio’s Oaks Course, and the biggest name is World No. 2 Rory McIlroy. While No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is getting his tune-up in this week in Houston, McIlroy will do so next week in the heart of the Lone Star State.
Also in the field in San Antonio are 2021 winner Jordan Spieth, Brian Harman, Hideki Matsuyama, Collin Morikawa, Matt Fitzpatrick and Ludvig Aberg. Corey Conners is the defending champion. Both of his PGA Tour victories have come at the Valero Texas Open.
TPC San Antonio is a par-72 layout measuring 7,438 yards.
Here’s a look at the full field for the final event before the Masters, the Valero Texas Open:
