Rory McIlroy says ‘defeating my own mind' was key to Masters victory
RORY MCILROY BELIEVES 'defeating my own mind' was key to winning the Masters and will take 'nothing but positive vibes' into next week's US PGA Championship.
McIlroy's thrilling victory at Augusta National made him just the sixth player to complete a career grand slam and came on his 11th attempt to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in golf's most exclusive club.
It was a victory which many observers had doubted would ever happen given McIlroy's long major drought, especially after he had failed to convert a two-shot lead late in the final round of last year's US Open at Pinehurst.
And the world number two almost squandered a five-shot lead with eight holes to play before beating Ryder Cup team-mate Justin Rose with a birdie on the first play-off hole.
'I always had hope,' McIlroy insisted ahead of his title defence in the Truist Championship.
'I wasn't going to show up at Augusta and feel like I couldn't win. The week that I feel like that I'll go up there for the Champions Dinner and swan around in my green jacket, but I won't be playing.
'Yeah, I always had hope. I always felt like I had the game. And I think, as everyone saw on that back nine on Sunday, it was about getting over… I don't know what the right phrase is, but defeating my own mind was sort of the big thing for me and getting over that hurdle.
Advertisement
'Look, I'm just glad that it's done. I don't want to ever have to go back to that Sunday afternoon again. I'm glad that I finished the way I did and we can all move on with our lives.'
McIlroy enjoyed a deliberately low-key week of celebrations after the Masters, both in England – to see the house he is having built – and Northern Ireland, where he admitted he and mother Rosie were 'both a mess for a few minutes' as the emotions kicked in.
The world number two then finished 12th in the defence of his Zurich Classic title with close friend Shane Lowry before fulfilling more media obligations in New York, but is keen to get back to business as usual, especially now he is free of what he called the 'burden' of chasing the career grand slam.
McIlroy has also won four times at Quail Hollow, which hosts next week's US PGA Championship and has forced the Truist Championship – formerly the Wells Fargo Championship – to move to Philadelphia Cricket Club this year.
'I'm obviously going to feel more comfortable and a lot less pressure, and I'm also going back to a venue that I love,' McIlroy said when asked about the year's second major.
'It's nothing but positive vibes going in there next week with what happened a few weeks ago and then with my history there and how well I've played at Quail.
'Yeah, it probably will feel a little bit different. I probably won't be quite as on edge as I have been for the last few years when I've been at major championships.
'I'll probably be a little bit better to be around for my family and I'll be a little more relaxed. I think overall it will be a good thing.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
7 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Shane Lowry just four back in crowded Canadian Open field
The world No 12 missed just two greens in regulation, a major requirement in next week's US Open, as he made three birdies and a lone bogey to share 16th on 10-under in Toronto. He's just four strokes behind Italy's Matteo Manassero and New Zealander Ryan Fox, who both shot six-under 64s on Saturday to share the third-round lead. Manassero fought back from a three-putt bogey on the 17th with a birdie on the par-five 18th to get to 14-under on the North Course at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley. 'I missed the short one on 17, and I did miss a couple more short ones today,' Manassero said after hitting his 80-yard third to two feet at the last. 'I try to think of them just like a shot, really, like a driver, like a six-iron, whatever. 'It's just a shot. So I don't want it to get in my head, and I don't want that to ruin anything or my attitude going towards the next shots.' Seeking his first win on the PGA Tour, Manaserro (32) overcame a severe slump to win back his DP World Tour card and earn dual membership of the US circuit. 'I try to get a good attitude, a good thought process, talk well to myself,' he said. 'Very basic things. 'I've matured a lot and I have a better perspective towards, for example, a day like tomorrow." Powerful hitter Fox (38) also birdied the 18th as he bids to add to his maiden win following a play-off in the Myrtle Beach Classic last month. ADVERTISEMENT 'To be honest, everything went pretty right,' Fox said. 'I drove it great. I think if you do that round here, you give yourself lots of chances. 'Had a lot of good wedge shots, holed a few putts early. Just played really solid kind of stress-free golf for the most part.' The top 28 on the leaderboard are covered by just five strokes. Lee Hodges and Kevin Yu shot 63 and Matt McCarty a 64 trail the leaders by just one stroke behind on 13-under. Canadian Mackenzie Hughes (64) was 12-under with Jake Knapp (66) and Andrew Putnam (68). 'I've been putting the ball in play quite a bit, driving it pretty nice,' Hughes said. 'I feel like that's taken some pressure off the putter and the short game. It's a big key around here. You start driving it well, you can attack and be aggressive.'
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Irish Times
Oakmont designers wound the clock back 100 years to give iconic course a new feel for US Open
Time brings change. It always does. The evolution of the golf course at Oakmont Country Club, northeast of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, has been ongoing for more than a century. The players who have qualified for next week's US Open at the famed venue are in for a test of skills and nerve. The challenge provided by a venue that has hosted the championship more often than anywhere else remains the same. It will be very tough. Bryson DeChambeau , on a reconnaissance visit ahead of the championship – which he had the decency to share with his followers on YouTube – sought to highlight the depth and thickness of the rough on a course known as The Beast. He did this by dropping a ball into the knee-high grass, where it disappeared from view. He didn't seek to play the shot, wise man that he is. Perhaps he learned from the past misfortune of others. That rough, of course, has always retained a share of notoriety. Phil Mickelson showed foresight in making an advance visit to the venue ahead of the US Open in 2007. Unfortunately, his decision backfired when he attempted to play out of the rough in a practice round two weeks ahead of the championship. It resulted in injury and required strapping in the week that mattered. READ MORE 'There were dozens of players who got hurt the week of the Open that particular year,' Mickelson recalled. 'I wasn't the only one. I was fortunate that it wasn't anything serious, it was just a bone bruise. It went away after 12 weeks.' Oakmont's beastly reputation has been established through the years. Gene Sarazen, the US Open winner of 1922 and 1932, once said Oakmont possessed 'all the charm of a sock to the head'. Johnny Miller – who won the US Open there – described it as 'the most difficult test of golf in America.' Tiger Woods , competing there in 2007, described the putting surfaces as 'by far the most difficult greens I've ever played'. Ahead of next week's tournament, it goes without saying that further changes will have been made to the course since it last hosted the US Open in 2016. That was the year Dustin Johnson won his first Major title. The 2016 tournament was notable for the dramatic change in aesthetics since the 2007 win by Angel Cabrera. Thousands of trees were removed from the course in that nine-year window to bring back back the original design concepts of designer Henry Clay Fownes, who built the course on rolling farmland with the aid of 150 men and two dozen mules. It opened for play in 1903 and has challenged ever since, with lightning fast greens and a vast array of bunker systems. Oakmont has been through several design changes but the level of difficulty has never compromised. Photograph:The latest alterations to the course were overseen by the ingenuity of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner in a project that started in 2022. Hanse and Wagner are a design team with a list of impressive projects under their belt, including Narin and Portnoo in Co Donegal. Their work at Oakmont has brought the course closer to how Fownes and his son WC envisaged it. That's not to say it is identical. For starters, it is almost 1,000 yards longer these days. Suffice to say, the improvements in club design and golf balls compensate for that. The pews were also rebuilt to be less consistent from pew to pew, much like the ones originally constructed by the Fowneses — Gil Hanse Hanse and Wagner were initially brought in to improve drainage and irrigation (the old system was 20 years old) on the course before the club decided that a more substantial restoration project was also needed. The underlying remit never changed. That is, Oakmont was to retain its reputation as one of the toughest championship challenges around. The greens – the true defence of the course – have been expanded. In doing this, Hanse and Wagner tried to be faithful to Fownes's original thinking. Their nips and tucks have added an estimated 15 per cent more putting surface and created new hole locations. 'We referenced a lot of early photos, 1920s and 1930s, to come up with the look and feel of the greens,' said Hanse. 'In their original configurations, the greens didn't change much during the Fownes tenure. They were much more of a table-top nature. Over time they had evolved through sand buildup along the edges, to a place where the putting surface was not the high point of the green complex—the edges were higher than the centre. We have reversed that and they now flow directly into the bunkers, rather than the bunkers flowing into the greens.' The design team estimates that 24,000 sq f of green expansions have been installed across all 18 holes. This is most notable with a 2,500 sq f expansion at the par-four third. There are also green-surface additions to holes two, seven, 13, 16 and 18. Much of the design duo's work focused on reviving the original plateau greens that fed into the greenside bunkers. The design tweaking extended beyond the greens, with the famous church-pew bunkering – which align the left sides of the third and fourth holes – also getting a makeover. Two grassy mounds have been added and the length extended to 100 yards. Oakmont's church-pew bunkers have been redesigned to resemble aspects of the original course in the early 20th century. Photograph:'We wanted to make sure the pews were still in position to challenge the landing area of the longest players,' said Hanse. 'The pews were also rebuilt to be less consistent from pew to pew, much like the ones originally constructed by the Fowneses.' Hanse remarked on how he and Wager went about their business of reinventing the original. 'We researched the course from 1903 to 1947, the period during which at least one of the Fowneses was involved in the design decisions. During that time, the course underwent changes almost on an annual basis. As a result, it would have been truly difficult to determine what iteration of the entire course was best. 'So we decided, with the club's support, to look at each hole on an individual basis and try to determine which iteration of each hole would be the best fit for the way the game is played today. This creates an eclectic 18 holes, with the common denominator being that one of the Fowneses was involved in the creation of that version of the hole.' When the 2021 US Amateur Championship – won by James Piot – was played at Oakmont, some players used unusual cross-country routes to navigate a way from tee to green. They opted to hit tee shots to adjoining fairways to make for easier approach shots. The design work conducted by Hanse and Wagner will likely put a stop to such uncharted shot-making. This is best illustrated by their expansion of the bunker complex between the 10th and 11th holes, while they also reconstructed the ditch that crosses the 10th fairway at a 45-degree angle. For all the changes and indeed the throwback to the past, one thing is for sure – Oakmont will be as tough a course as ever. Nothing new there. The day DJ ruled the roost The rules of golf, by their nature, are complex. However, the final round of the US Open at Oakmont in 2016 brought a farcical element to their interpretation and implementation. That was the day Dustin Johnson accidentally moved his ball a fraction on the fifth green of his final round. After initially being exonerated of any wrongdoing, he was informed on the 12th hole that the USGA was reviewing video evidence and considering imposing a penalty. Dustin Johnson's US Open victory at Oakmont in 2016 was not without drama. Photograph:As it happened, the one-stroke penalty which came his way didn't affect the outcome. Johnson finished with a four-stroke winning margin, subsequently reduced to three, to claim his breakthrough Major win. Johnson's infringement on the fifth green involved his ball moving a couple of dimples. It was a marginal movement. DJ along with playing partner Lee Westwood and the USGA rules official, deemed there to be no issue, only for it to be subsequently reviewed by video evidence. Johnson was only informed after his round that he would incur the one-stroke penalty after being judged to have been responsible for moving his ball a fraction of an inch. [ Scottie Scheffler's absence from Canadian Open might just be a relief for Rory McIlroy Opens in new window ] The rule in play for the incident on the fifth green was '18.2: Ball at Rest moved by Player, Partner, Caddie or Equipment'. Based on the information, the referee determined that it was more likely than not that Johnson had not caused the movement. The referee instructed Johnson to play the ball as it lies (from its new location) without penalty. Because of that instruction, the player did not incur a second penalty for playing the ball from the wrong place. The Oakmont greens are among the fastest on any championship rota and other players had issues. Shane Lowry, in his second round, called a penalty on himself for a similar slight movement when addressing a putt. The unfairness of the rule – compounded by the delay of the USGA in dealing with the matter – led to a reconsideration of its interpretation. The USGA and the R&A, the worldwide governing bodies, ultimately changed the rule. Subsequently, a new rule was introduced so that any accidental movement of the ball would not incur a penalty. You can thank Dustin Johnson for that.
Irish Independent
17 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Rory McIlroy in Canadian Open cut battle as he beds in new driver
The Masters champion had his driver ruled non-conforming at the PGA Championship two weeks ago and after struggling with a replacement, he put a new one in the bag at TPC Toronto, where a one-over 71 left him outside the top 100 and facing a cut battle today. 'I actually felt like I played OK,' said the Co Down man, who hit just nine greens in regulation but was happy to see his left miss with the driver turn into a more manageable miss to the right. 'It was my first outing with a new driver and I felt like that went pretty well. I hit some drives that I liked and that I liked to see, so that was encouraging.' The world No 2 played the back nine blind in rainy conditions and dropped shots at the 12th and 17th before turning things around with three birdies in a row from the 18th. But while he paid for missed fairways with bogeys at the eighth and ninth, he was still upbeat despite finding himself six shots behind early leaders Taylor Pendrith, Alex Smalley and Paul Peterson. 'Overall, I'm pretty happy with how I played,' he said. 'I'm still trying to work on some things, but I'm OK with where everything is. Hopefully, that's the end of the rain and it can firm up a little bit. It's a very gettable golf course, especially with how soft it is. 'I'm going to have to do a little bit better tomorrow to be here for the weekend and give myself a chance.' As for the new driver, he said he was trying to work on his right miss. 'It's just trying to figure that out and manage it a little bit,' he explained. 'It's a nice feeling to get up the middle of the fairway and fully release it and know it's not going to go left on you. A little bit of practice this afternoon and get ready for tomorrow.' On the Ladies European Tour, Kildare's Lauren Walsh roared into contention for her maiden win when she opened with a bogey-free, five-under 67 to grab a share of the lead in the Tenerife Women's Open. ADVERTISEMENT The Castlewarden star (24) birdied the 10th and 18th at Abama Golf before making further birdies at the first, third and fifth to share top spot with Denmark's Sofie Kibsgaard Nielsen, one clear of England's Eleanor Givens. Anna Foster was 17th after a 71 as Canice Screene shot 75. Fellow rookies Sara Byrne and Annabel Wilson carded 77s. At the DP World Tour's KLM Open, Conor Purcell fought back from a four-over-par front nine, but his one-over 73 left him with work to do to make the cut at The International in Amsterdam, The Dubliner (27) made four bogeys on the back nine, two of them with three-putts, before following birdies at the first, third and sixth with another bogey at the par-three seventh. He ended the day tied for 74th, nine shots behind Portugal's Ricardo Gouveia, whose 64 gave him a one-shot lead over Scotland's Connor Syme. It was a better day on the HotelPlanner Tour for Ballymena's Dermot McElroy, who built on his third-place finish in Cadiz and opened with a four-under 67 in the Swiss Challenge in Lucerne. 'I've been working on the technical side of things for a while with my swing and decided a few weeks back to scrap the swing thoughts and just go out and play my usual game,' said McElroy, who was tied for 15th, four strokes behind England's David Horsey. 'I did it to be more consistent on the course, but obviously, my performances at the start of the year were poor enough. 'So I am happy to be back hitting my normal shots again and certainly more comfortable on the course as a result.' Alex Maguire was 38th after a 69 with Liam Nolan, who is eighth in the rankings, a shot further back in 54th after a 70. Level-par 71s left Jonny Caldwell and Max Kennedy joint 77th, while Mark Power's 74 left him 129th.
