Familiarity breeds success for surging Rory McIlroy on Masters opening day

So much of the charm and success of The Masters is based around the consistency and familiarity of the tournament.

You turn on the television and you see those familiar vibrant green shades, the shimmering water on 12, the pinks and the creams of the blooming foliage. The course is the same every year, the traditions are the same every year, and you can throw tariffs, trade wars and the Strait of Hormuz at Augusta but sandwich prices will still be the same every year.

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But as far as continuity goes, having last year’s winner, Rory McIlroy, tied for the lead after the first round of this year’s tournament at -5 might be a little bit much.

Perhaps time is simply a flat circle and we’re stuck in a seamless loop of Masters championships, unable to see where one ends and the next begins.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, he remains one of the best golfers on Earth, now experienced enough in tickling a ball around this verdant corner of northern Georgia to know the course well – and to be able to profit from those historic heartbreaks and failures.

At this stage it’s probably important to note that Sam Burns is right there too, the young American carding a strikingly consistent 67 in only his fifth participation here, with the best approach play of anyone at Augusta on Thursday.

But Burns is one of golf’s band of pre-superstars. He joins the likes of Ludvig Aberg, Tom Kim and Akshay Bhatia as those tipped to eventually win a major and this could yet be Burns’s week, the biggest of his life in that case.

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Just ask Rory, though. The Masters is about proving it. Any idea of McIlroy being zen and at peace with the world now that he’s completed the career slam is far from the truth. By his own admission, once he had climbed to the top of the mountain it showed him “how many more peaks there were to conquer”.

Still, as he stuck his tee into the ground on the first hole today, the sun beating down, he noticed the familiar tremble. As he struggled to keep the ball on top of it, he knew. Those nerves were still there. It’s likely they will never go.

“That’s a good thing. That’s why we want to be here,” he said afterwards of that momentary tremor. “We want to be able to try to play our best golf when we’re feeling like that.”

It wasn’t a vintage start from McIlroy and it did require him to grit his teeth and push through it. He thought he played a round that was good enough for a two-under and instead he co-leads the tournament at five-under. The data supports that he wasn’t at his best, barely in the top 100 for fairway accuracy,

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“But again, I used my head… I got up-and-down when I needed to,” he explained. “I didn’t compound mistakes. Again, that’s just a learning curve that you have to go through around here, and I did it well today.”

In his own words, McIlroy simply “kept swinging”. Still level to par through seven holes, he picked up five shots on the last 11 holes to join Burns as clubhouse leader while Justin Rose, who he beat in last year’s playoff, looked set to join him until his scorecard was blemished by a pair of late bogeys – ultimately joining a group on -2, three strokes back, that also includes fellow major champions Scottie Scheffler, Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele.

All those players have put themselves in a good position to be where they want to be on Sunday night but you simply can’t look past the advantage of having done it all before.

“I do think winning a Masters makes it easier to win your second one. I do,” added McIlroy.

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“It’s hard to say because there’s still shots out there that you feel a little bit tight with, and you just have to stand up and commit to making a good swing and not worry about really where it goes.

“But I think it’s easier for me to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go back to the Champions Locker Room afterwards and put my green jacket on.”