The two Irishmen sat side-by-side. One of them had a green jacket. The other wants one badly.
John Carr, the moderator of a press conference, is a long-standing member of Augusta National; and Rory McIlroy’s latest attempt to get a matching jacket for his wardrobe depends on whether – at the 16th attempt – he can lay claim to another Major title here, the last piece of that sought-after career Grand Slam.
Not that the quest for the Slam got much airtime. In a pre-tournament press conference confined to 10 minutes at McIlroy’s behest and which allowed just eight questions, this perhaps brought a further example of the Northern Irishman’s ever-changing methodology to crack the code in seeking to win over hallowed golfing terrain.
McIlroy has played more frequently than ever this spring in the build-up to the Masters and the fact he only drove up Magnolia Lane half an hour before the scheduled meeting with the press also provided an indication that his two-day reconnaissance visit last week in advance of playing in the Valero Texas Open (where he had a PGA Tour season’s best third-place finish) had him in a comfort zone that required little intrusion.
For this latest bid for a famed green jacket, McIlroy has sought to normalise his routine. Hence the late arrival. Hence self-determining the length of the press conference.
“This is my 16th start in the Masters, so I feel like I’ve done it quite a few different ways, and I guess I’m just trying to bring a little bit of normalcy into what I sort of try to do week in, week out. I play 25 weeks a year, and there’s no point in doing anything different this week compared to other weeks, I guess.
“I wanted to play quite a bit leading up to this just to feel like my game was sharp or, if it wasn’t sharp, to try to get it in the best shape possible. I feel like I made a couple of good strides in that direction last week in Texas . . . I came up here last week to play two practice rounds at the start of the week. I feel like I’ve already got most of my prep work done. So, It’s just about going out there and being relaxed and being in the right frame of mind. And the more I can do that, the more I’ll be able to execute on the golf course,” said McIlroy.
Except, what McIlroy has done hasn’t been entirely normal. He has played more – the Texas Open providing his first top-10 of the PGA Tour, having jumped out of the blocks earlier this year with a runner-up and a winning start in back-to-back weeks in Dubai on the DP world Tour – and, also, paid a visit to Butch Harmon for some extra clarity on his swing.
“He’s part sort of psychologist, part swing coach. Like I always joke about, you spend four hours with Butch and you go away with two swing tips and 30 stories. But you always go away hitting the ball better than when you came.
“So, yeah, it was a really beneficial trip for the technical side of things, which I think I made progress in that department last week, especially with my strokes gained approach numbers, which is what I really wanted to do,” he added.
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