Sometimes in sports, it’s the narrow miss followed by the courage to get back up that leaves the most indelible emotional mark, but missing again leaves the most indelible emotional mark. Repeated hope and optimism are crushed each time, more and more brutally, until there is no chance left.
Maybe this could be the year Jimmy White finally wins the World Snooker Championship…? Or has the England men’s football team finally won another major tournament…? Or could Ireland finally make it past the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup…?
Or has Rory McIlroy finally won his career grand slam by winning the Masters…?
The story is well known. As a supremely talented 21-year-old at the 2011 Masters, he went into the final day with a four-stroke lead and still had an advantage going into the turn, but his most spectacular back-nine collapse occurred on Sunday when he shot 80. exit the top 10.
He quickly bounced back from that to win his first major on his way to collecting four of the sport’s biggest championships later that summer, inviting Tiger Woods comparisons and suggestions that he could eclipse even Jack Nicklaus’ seemingly untouchable record of 18 men’s majors.
But the Masters always eluded him. His five consecutive top-10 finishes from 2014 to 2018, a fifth-place finish in 2020 and a second-place finish behind maverick Scottie Scheffler in 2022 prove he has the game to tame Augusta National, but the green jacket he is yet to grace the Northern Irishman’s large frame. shoulders.
The great drought has reached a decade, so even a third PGA Championship crown would bite your hand, but the Masters remains the ultimate, exciting goal. Tournament victory that would see him join Nicklaus, Woods, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan and Gary Player in capturing a career grand slam.
McIlroy tries to break the ice by changing his preparations for Augusta every year. This season included playing a much busier schedule than usual and visiting legendary coach Butch Harmon in Las Vegas for a tip or two.
“I met Butch when I was 14, so we always had a good relationship,” McIlroy said. “If there is one person I want to go to and get a second opinion from, it’s him. The same things I try to do with my coach Michael [Bannon], but he said it a little differently, so maybe it hit me a little more. “It was a truly worthwhile journey.”
The proof will only be seen when we find out who wore the green jacket on Sunday evening. Maybe this is the year McIlroy’s grand slam dream finally comes true…
While Rory’s quest for immortality makes headlines every year, the 2024 Masters has plenty of subplots to make it one of the most intriguing men’s golf events in a long time.
The shadow of the golf civil war between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf looms depressingly large as the optimism of last year’s shock announcement that the two sides were on the verge of merging to bring everyone back together fades in the absence of any concrete momentum towards that goal.
Players are still over the edge, LIV is still unable to offer ranking points for their events, and unheralded multimillionaires are still making themselves look like they’re stuck. Talor Gooch, who has zero major top-10 finishes to his name, claims the 2024 Masters winner will carry an asterisk after his name because he has not played in the tournament. No one said professional golfers were the most self-aware group…
The infighting took on a new dimension this week, with reigning Masters champion and supposed stalwart Jon Rahm switching from the PGA to LIV since winning the green jacket last April. Complicating matters is the fact that Rahm is much less underrated than former stalwarts like Patrick Reed and Phil Mickelson, and this has added further interest to golf as golf fans suffer from not being able to watch the world’s best match week after week. majors.
Rahm could become the first winner to defend his title since Sir Nick Faldo, which would be a boon for LIV and a blow for the PGA, but Augusta needs at least four days to spare, unbearable as its golf policies are. world-class golf to take our minds off everything.
But the Spaniard certainly won’t have it all his way, with world No.1 Scheffler looking unbeatable at times this season and bookmakers favoring him to win a second green jacket two years after claiming his first. There’s a real chance Scheffler can escape the tournament if his pitcher comes to his senses, but otherwise there are plenty of prospects from both tours waiting in the wings to get kicked out.
Xander Schauffele leads the group of players who have yet to win a major, and this week he could easily fix Jordan Spieth and Hideki Matsuyama being among the former winners who are more than capable of repeating the trick, and big machine Brooks Koepka living like that for weeks. A sixth major championship that will cement his place as the best player of his generation and a first green jacket that will leave him just one Claret Jug away from his own career grand slam will be what the big event animal awaits as he steps forward. This week at Magnolia Lane.
McIlroy’s annual quest may end in heartbreak once again, but the Masters never does, and a welcome respite from civil war is exactly what the sport of golf needs.