Eight years Rory McIlroy has been coming here to try to win the major he needs to complete the grand slam, and it feels as if he has gone about it in eight different ways. There was the McIlroy who had discovered meditation, and the McIlroy who fixated on his method, the McIlroy who had been reading self-help books, the McIlroy who was studying the swing science, and the McIlroy who was muscled up because he was spending so much time in the gym; there was McIlroy who talked up how much the Masters meant and the McIlroy who played it down. None of them got it done. So this year he has brought boring Rory.
At the start of the week McIlroy kept talking about being conservative, disciplined and patient. His plan was to play for the middle of the green, pick off the birdie putts when they came and make sure he stayed away from the kind of trouble that ends up in the big numbers that leave him too much to do come Sunday. Which was not a bad strategy so far as they go. The only trouble with it is, as he said himself, is it is not a style of play that comes naturally to him.McIlroy is a risk-taker, a shot-maker, a heart-breaker: he sees too many possibilities in the game to take it slow and steady. “It goes against my nature.”
It might be better suited to one of the two men he was paired with – Brooks Koepka, who has always seemed like a man who knows exactly what he wants to do and how he is going to try to do it. It was an intriguing grouping. Koepka is 31, McIlroy 32, they have both won four majors and they have a bit of history. Once, when Koepka was asked if they were rivals, he said they could not be because McIlroy had not won any majors since he came on tour. McIlroy pointed out, not long afterwards, that Koepka had won only four other tour events. He did not mention that he had won 14 in the same time. He did not need to.
Koepka is not so outspoken any more, his form has fallen off since he had knee surgery last year, and here he followed up his first-round 75 with another and finished up out of it at six shots over par. He is just discovering a lesson McIlroy learned a long time ago, which is that the game is not always as easy as it seems when you are winning everything.
McIlroy covered the front nine in even par, a birdie at the 2nd balancing out a bogey at the 5th, but he did it the hard way. At that 2nd he blew his drive wide right into the trees, then threaded his way out on to the front of the green and hit a wizardly 30-yard chip. He saved par with a superb putt from the front fringe at the 3rd. Then he found himself in trouble again off the 5th tee. His drive flew left this time, into a swale behind a clump of pine trees, an impossible obstacle which he, incredibly, managed to clear easily with a high draw over the top-most branches. He had less luck at the long uphill 8th, where his wild drive left him no choice but to chip back on to the fairway. It was about now that things started to get really interesting. The wind was picking up and it soon grew so stiff it was whipping the sand up out of the bunkers. From here on in it became a different game and a test of the way McIlroy says he wants to play.
At the 10th he got himself in a tangle when he lumped his second shot into a bunker, exactly the kind of mistake he said he had promised himself he was not going to make, then he blew a six-iron wide and three-putted the 11th for a double-bogey six. That meant he had dropped three shots in 15 minutes and all of a sudden he was back at four-over, with one eye on the cut-line coming up fast behind him. He was not the only player blown off course. Up ahead of him Jordan Spieth had just picked up a triple bogey at the 12th by going in and out, and in and out, of Rae’s Creek. “That wasn’t a great visual,” said McIlroy, who was watching from the 11th.
Unlike Spieth, and Koepka for that matter, McIlroy did manage to pull it around, with birdies at the 13th and 16th.That put him right back at two-over, out of trouble and, given how congested the leaderboard was getting, back in contention. It was some recovery. But even then he was not done with the drama. There was one more loose drive at the 18th, right into the trees, and from there he fetched up in a greenside bunker and was able to get up and down for a last par. How did he do it? “It’s maturity. It’s experience. It’s walking away 13 years in a row empty-handed,” he said.
So yes, McIlroy is close enough to fancy he will be in reach of the lead over the weekend. “I feel like I’m right there.” The score, 74, was the only steady thing about his rollercoaster round. He was not kidding when he said playing boring Rory is not really him.
