AUGUSTA, Ga. — The strut that borders on a skip. Welcomed to every tee box and green with warm shouts of his name. The tilted nods and faint smirks and brief waves when the ball finds a good score, which on this day was often. This is what winning was supposed to unlock in Rory McIlroy: a player in total command of himself. The liberation we feared never came turned out only to be delayed. It arrived Thursday, right back where it began.
He was the man in royal blue marching across the emerald, not carrying the weight of this place but wearing it. A march that only looks like that when you know it belongs to you, and that you’ll get to make it again for the rest of your life. Only three players have defended the Masters. McIlroy’s attempt to become the fourth received an auspicious start Thursday, a 67 putting him in a share of the opening-round lead.
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“Great start to the week obviously. Felt like I got a lot out of my round today,” McIlroy said. “It started pretty scrappy. I was hitting out of the trees a little bit the first seven holes and then started to string some good swings together from the 8th hole onwards.”
In spite of the tributes and documentaries and look-backs to a triumph that still feels very present, McIlroy the competitor went somewhat under the radar entering the week. His post-Masters victory lap went sideways at times. A back injury surfaced just a month ago. He carried so many non-playing obligations in the lead-up that the tournament itself felt like it might be getting shortchanged. The expectation, whispered if not spoken aloud, was that he would be happy just to be here, that the questions asked of him for so long had been answered and that was enough.
The beautiful thing about sport is the score is not dictated by narrative.
He was patient Thursday, understanding that survival is the only real objective on the opening day at Augusta. No small feat when you’re finding just five of 14 fairways. But he stayed steady, trusting the course would eventually offer what he needed, and it did. Birdies at the eighth and ninth. Then three consecutive red figures starting at 13. As serene a round as Augusta allows.
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“I still have high expectations of myself, but my expectations are more ‘Did I make good decisions today? Was I committed? Was I trusting?’” McIlroy explained. “I think it took me a while to get to that point where, if I focus on the process and the little mini goals of not compounding errors, like today, hitting it in trees and trying to be a hero, making good decisions, thinking my way around the golf course, I think those are the expectations I have for myself. And if I can live up to those expectations, then the scores and the results should take care of itself.
“So I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying not really focusing on the outcome, but focusing on all the little things you have to do to hopefully have that outcome take care of itself.”
It was his second-lowest opening round here, only bested by a 65 in 2011, the tournament that was supposed to be his coronation and instead became the first installment of 15 years of Augusta anguish. It would be foolish to extrapolate too much from 18 holes, with 54 remaining and conditions threatening to turn mean over the weekend. The leaderboard is formidable, Scottie Scheffler’s name already near the top. And McIlroy’s ballstriking was ordinary at best, his putter doing the rescue work. But that is its own kind of endorsement, converting a B-minus ball-striking day into an A-plus score. That’s a great player’s trick. Not everyone has it.
It was also un-Rory-like, in the best sense. The McIlroy we know, the one that makes all of his moves worth watching, is the one who plays a different game than everyone else, conjuring shots the rest of us dream about while quietly praying he won’t try them. The thrill and the terror sharing the same swing. Thursday had none of that. What it had instead was a player utterly unbothered, going about his business with the certainty of someone who has already survived the worst this place can do. Last year settled the existential question. Augusta could not break him. What remains now isn’t about proving anything. It’s about finishing what he started.
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“I said this when I came in on Tuesday, I think winning a Masters makes it easier to win your second one. I do,” McIlroy said. “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. “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 to the Champions Locker Room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day.”
That should terrify the rest of the field. What held McIlroy back was the ghost of what almost was. That fight is over. What’s left is everyone else’s problem.
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