The biggest problem I had was grasping that it was all of 11 years ago. Probably because with the amount of column inches and airtime devoted to it in the interim, it never really left public discourse.
‘IT’ in this instance wasn’t what my dearly beloved assures me is a terrifying horror movie. Though it left what would’ve made a horrifically brilliant script for a sequel…
‘IT’ in this case being what I have come to refer to over the last decade and a bit as ‘McIlroy’s Masters Meltdown’. As far as can be recalled, the star from the County Down held a seven shot lead going into the final round of the US Masters of 2014 at the iconic, incomparable Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.
However, for reasons you suspect the player himself or his former caddy JP Fitzgerald or Bob Rotella or Mystic Meg could never quite figure out, his advantage began to disappear quicker than an Irishman looking for a Spice Bag at closing time!
To the extent that, a former Meath footballer who, like yours truly, is a fan of all sports, text this writer when Rory was about half way around the most famous golf course in the world observing simply “It’s a good job he’s not wearing white trousers”!
Unlike a certain sportsperson, McIlroy’s misfortune was just one of those days when downhill momentum had him bowled over before he knew where he was.
However, while outside observers – this one included on occasion – laboured on the implosion in early April every year since, the player himself was able to compartmentalise it and continue to produce brilliance everywhere else in the golfing world.
Whereas, the other party hinted at up above had their jeering of their direct opponent not only came back to bite them in the ar*e but left an impression that has looked like fading once in the quarter century since.
A forward from an opposing county turns to Darren Fay one day – I’ll spare him and his county their dignity – and “Jazus, look at that scoreboard, we’re going to f*****g hammer ye”. To which an unmoved Fayser deadpan replied” If I was you, I’d be more concerned about the clock than the scoreboard”.
You’d have to wonder how many times over the last 14 years Rory McIlroy has been told ‘Jazus, it’s Masters week next week’. As if the Hollywood star needed reminding that it was time to once again face his chamber of horrors at the end of Magnolia Drive.
It would be insightful to know if there was a single shot, a particular moment, when he felt the implosion coming on that solemn Sunday back in 2011. Akin to, say, in the opposite way, Bubba Watson’s iron shot off the pine straw in among the trees was the greatest indicator of his impending accession to the Green Jacket.
Probably not in Rory’s case. Because, and the following most definitely applies in terms of negative occurrences, once momentum gets a run on you, a hot day in hell won’t derail it. Of course, the flip side of that coin is that, with the said factor backing you, it can, to turn the lyrics of an old song in the opposite direction, put you on a runaway train never going back, right way on a one way track.
Now, perhaps this is just perception looking from the outside in, but, in the last 18 months or so, McIlroy seems to be a different ‘beast’ – meant in the most complimentary terms possible. Whether that was caused by the rapid reversal of his mooted divorce from Erica Stoll or it was the other way around is probably neither here not there but the fact is that since all that brouhaha came and went, the player has been playing his best stuff maybe since the occasion of his last Major success.
To a certain extent, if such a thing were possible, Rory somewhat managed to come into the 85th staging of the season’s first Major under the radar. Perhaps owing to the media scrum surrounding Scottie Scheffler or others whom were considered to be in better form in the run up to the first big one of the year. Or there might even have been a certain cohort who discounted his chances given his past travails at said venue.
A combination of the whole lot allowed the nice people in Boylesports chalk up the man from the Mountains Of Mourne at a highly generous looking 8/1 before there was a ball struck in anger in the state of Georgia. To be honest, other sporting commitments meant I was only casting a passing glance for the first couple of days. But, just as they call the third quarter moving quarter in some sports, Day 3 is moving day in golf.
So, when, by the end of Saturday Rory had catapulted himself to -12 and a two shot lead, one couldn’t but let the mind go back to the Saturday/Sunday at the same venue a dozen and a bit years beforehand.
Then, when Sunday roll around, within two holes of Rory getting his final round under way, one was going to get the old Con Houlihan quote down off the mental shelf – “Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”.
If he didn’t go and double bogey his first hole. And yes, he was wearing white-ish trousers this time. Back level with Justin Rose. All the questions start swirling again. And that was only here in BTS HQ!
Lord knows what the man himself was thinking or feeling. To his utmost credit, outwardly at least, he gave no indication that the hamster had started laps on the wheel.
In fact, he recovered the couple of strokes and looked certain to hold off all comers after Scheffler and Bryson DeChambollix (sic) had made the charges and the faded away.
Going down the 18th with a one shot lead over Rosey, surely he can relax now, right? Eh, no, not Rory. Especially in that place.
However, even the rules official in the other Butlers Cabin far away must have known he was extracting the urine at the point when Rory almost inexplicably bogeyed the last. Thus handing former US Open champion Rose a reprieve he was hardly expecting.
Sometimes, though, there are signs. Especially if you’re hyper superstitious like me. As good omens go, this might be stretching it a bit, but, seeing Rory’s young daughter Poppy draining that long putt during one of the practice rounds made you wonder maybe, just maybe was this going to be the day?
You could hardly blame the player himself if the hamster was warming up at that stage. But on the way to the start of overtime – a play off – his caddie Harry Diamond asked him what all of us watching were thinking “Wouldn’t you have taken this scenario at the start of the week”?
Maybe minus the play off, but you knew what he meant. And, what RTE’s Greg Allen aptly described as ‘Rory 2.0’ not only took it but cashed it in with interest.
At last, as he put it himself “The monkey’s finally off my back”. With that came confirmation of what we’ve all known since the first time we spotted the bushy, curly headed youngster storming to victory in the Wells Fargo Championship of 2010 at Quail Hollow.
That he is not only the greatest Irish golfer of all time – quite possibly the greatest international sports star the Emerald Isle has ever produced – but, pound for pound, the best golfer on the planet.
The thing now is, with the member of the animal kingdom no longer living rent free on his back, who knows what doors that will throw open to him. There were those – and I must sheepishly admit to numbering among them for a while – who wondered would he ever get the fifth Major, let alone complete the Grand Slam. Which in golfing terms means winning all four Majors at least once.
In conclusion, perhaps with such a momentous event, it would be only fitting to leave the defining summary of a historic few days to Allen, the voice of Irish golf, who reckoned the “Season Grand Slam” could be the next item on the 36-year-old’s agenda.
Who knows. Whatever about that, chasing down the Tiger doesn’t seem such a forlorn hope now.
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