AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Rory McIlroy went from becoming the sixth player with the career Grand Slam to only the fourth player to win the Masters two years in a row. Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are the only other players to occupy both clubs.
Elite company, indeed.
If joining the first group wasn't difficult enough for McIlroy — 11 years of trying to get the final leg of the Grand Slam — then winning his second Masters green jacket was a clear reminder
of how hard it was to get there.
“I thought it was so difficult to win last year because of trying to win the Masters and the Grand Slam,” McIlroy said. “And then this year I realized it’s just really difficult to win the Masters.”
So where does he go from here?
McIlroy went into a funk last year after fulfilling a lifelong dream. He became irritated by endless questions about what would motivate him, which mountain was next to scale, when all he wanted to do was soak it all in. He finally got back on track at the Irish Open.
That doesn't sound like it will be a problem this time around.
“I felt like the Grand Slam was the destination, and I realized it wasn't,” McIlroy said after ending another wild Sunday afternoon at Augusta National with a one-shot win over Scottie Scheffler.
“I just won my sixth major, and I feel like I'm in a really good spot with my game and my body,” he said. “I don't want to put a number on it, but I feel like this win is just ... I don't want to say a stop on the journey, it's just part of the journey.”
Trying to put a number on how many majors he will win began long before he won his first Masters, much less the second one. McIlroy won his first major in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional by shattering the 72-hole scoring record at 268.
That prompted Padraig Harrington to say, “If you're going to talk about someone challenging Jack's record, there's your man.”
Nicklaus has the gold standard of 18 majors. Woods is next at 15. McIlroy is at six, tied with Nick Faldo, Lee Trevino and Phil Mickelson.
Fred Couples piled on this week when he said on Thursday, “By the way, Rory may never lose this thing again after last year.” And the following day Couples added, “I mean, he really could win five more of these.”
Easy, right?
“Yeah, I don't make it easy," McIlroy said. “I used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots."
He still holds the PGA Championship record for margin of victory when he won at Kiawah Island by eight shots in 2012, the year after his eight-shot victory at Congressional.
“No, it’s just hard. It’s hard to win golf tournaments, especially around here,” he said. “You’ve had maybe a couple of runaway winners over the years, but it always seems to be a very tight finish at this golf course."
It wasn't easy a year ago when he lost a Sunday lead once on the front nine and twice on the back nine before beating Justin Rose in a playoff. And it didn't look that way this time when he lost a six-shot lead on Saturday, and then twice found himself two shots behind different players, Cameron Young on the front nine and Justin Rose on the back.
Scottie Scheffler was in range and had to settle for making 11 straight pars. Young had birdie putts on eight straight holes on the back nine and converted none of them.
And then McIlroy was a whisker away from trouble over the final hour — the wedge that barely cleared the false front on the 15th, a sporty up-and-down from off the 17th green that gave him a two-shot cushion going to the last hole, and a drive so far right McIlroy wasn't sure where it was when he walked off the tee.
It ended with more joy than relief, a big difference from a year ago. The only tears came when he spoke to his parents, who were not at Augusta a year ago and had to be persuaded to come this year because they didn't want to jinx him.
With a bogey on the last hole he could afford, it ended with a one-shot advantage over Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world. This was the first time since the 2002 U.S. Open the top two players in the world — Woods and Phil Mickelson at Bethpage Black — were the top two at a major.
McIlroy and Scheffler have combined to win four of the last five majors. Scheffler is a U.S. Open short of joining the career Grand Slam club, and his position at No. 1 in the world is not threatened even after McIlroy's latest Masters title.
“I’ve competed against him for a long time, and you don’t win the amount of tournaments that he’s won out here without being pretty resilient,” Scheffler said.
McIlroy is the first player since Adam Scott in 2013 to have taken three weeks off before winning the Masters. There's a sense that will be part of his plan going forward when possible. He felt like more than an honorary member as many trips as he took to Augusta in the last few weeks.
“I think it's a good blueprint,” McIlroy said. "I’m not going to take three weeks off before every major. ... When I've talked to Jack Nicklaus over the years how he prepared for majors, and he would go the week before, and he would simulate a tournament.
“I think that’s certainly a good way to prepare going into the next majors.”
The next one starts May 15, another stop in the journey without needing to set a target for how many.
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