How did Rory McIlroy’s six-shot lead disappear? It’s complicated

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The lesson is almost finished. The sun was about to set. And Rory McIlroy was strapping on his glove, pulling a sword from his bag and dragging the ball into place, starting to look for an easy fix in the empty practice area of ​​Augusta National as one question hung in the air.

Where did his six-shot streak go?

McIlroy was ejected minutes into a question-and-answer session with a group of reporters following his third-round 73, a dismissal that left him in contention heading into Sunday’s final. McIlroy was frank, cheerful, and in good spirits as he spoke, admitting that he “didn’t quite have it” on Saturday and that he would need to do better on Sunday to have any chance of winning.

But what does that mean, not having “it,” and letting the edge of history slide? Some of McIlroy’s answers are specific, like the missed birdie putts on 8 and 9 or the gusty wind on No. 11, where he made double bogeys. (“It just drifted slowly into the air and into the water.”)

There was also the matter of the boys in his rear view, piling birds in front of him.

“The level of pursuit is evident. There are many boys who shot good scores,” he said. That includes Sam Burns, who shot a 68 next to him on Saturday, and Cameron Young, who will be his playing partner in the final round after shooting a 65 to catch him eight strokes behind.

Some questions and answers were asked in detail. McIlroy’s poor round had derailed the satisfying narrative that he was playing so well because he had won the previous year’s Masters and because that win had released a decade of stress and misery; the story had thought that he would now be free to fight his way to another victory.

Not immediately.

“This golf course has a way of saying – if you don’t feel good, you struggle,” he said.

You can look at McIlroy’s sour day as a failure to follow his game plan, which was to keep the pedal down and continue to play offense. But while there were a couple changes he’d like to fully commit to, like a 12- or 13-year-old tee shot, he said. mostly well done in the concepts department.

You can also consider his fighting to be related to swinging; he has hit half of his route for the week and on Saturday he battled repeated left-hand misses with his braces. His approach went left on the par-3 4th, on the par-3 6th, on the par-4 11th, on the par-3 12th, among others. Those misses were different, he said; others come from uneven layups or poorly executed third-quarter turns. But they were connected by a common issue.

“I think for me it’s about keeping my lower body moving. As long as I can get my lower body moving, that should fix it,” he said.

What makes golf so mysterious is that the mind, body and nature are so intertwined. It may seem silly, but McIlroy seems to admit that, indirectly, playing under the strange pressure of a six-shot Masters lead affected the way his lower body moved through the golf swing. And there is something to that media narrative, he added. Here’s what McIlroy had to say about his hopes for Sunday, in hopes of easing things up:

“I’d like to think I’m going to play a little more relaxed and I’m going to play like I have a green jacket – which I do. Sometimes I probably have to remind myself of that,” he said.

And then there’s McIlroy, minutes later, hitting ball after ball on the remains of a beautiful spring night. These seemed to be flying freely in the direction he directed, a distant yellow flag. It is different in grade compared to course; every golfer knows that. But it’s a good start. To play for free, you need to know where to hit.

It was fitting that there was only one other player left on Augusta’s practice floor as McIlroy’s tenure continued: Brooks Koepka. He, too, had posted a disappointing day, although he improved it with a solid second 9. He left as McIlroy’s time went on; the two had a brief, pleasant exchange on his way.

Koepka, like McIlroy, has five majors, more than anyone else in the field. The two have played practice rounds together before, here and elsewhere. They talk at home in south Florida. They are different people, like golfers and so on. But they both won majors and lost them, too. They know the good thing about a Saturday night session is that you still have Sunday to show what you can do.

And they know that it is easier to understand the narrative when the story is fully written.

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