AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
Elite company, indeed.<\/p>\n
If joining the first group wasn\u2019t difficult enough for McIlroy \u2014 11 years of trying to get the final leg of the Grand Slam \u2014 then winning his second Masters green jacket was a clear reminder of how hard it was to get there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was so difficult to win last year because of trying to win the Masters and the Grand Slam,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cAnd then this year I realized it\u2019s just really difficult to win the Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n
So where does he go from here?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t sound like it will be a problem this time around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like the Grand Slam was the destination, and I realized it wasn\u2019t,\u201d McIlroy said after ending another wild Sunday afternoon at Augusta National with a one-shot win over Scottie Scheffler.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just won my sixth major, and I feel like I\u2019m in a really good spot with my game and my body,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to put a number on it, but I feel like this win is just … I don\u2019t want to say a stop on the journey, it\u2019s just part of the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That prompted Padraig Harrington to say, \u201cIf you\u2019re going to talk about someone challenging Jack\u2019s record, there\u2019s your man.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Fred Couples piled on this week when he said on Thursday, \u201cBy the way, Rory may never lose this thing again after last year.\u201d And the following day Couples added, \u201cI mean, he really could win five more of these.\u201d<\/p>\n
Easy, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I don\u2019t make it easy,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s just hard. It\u2019s hard to win golf tournaments, especially around here,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve had maybe a couple of runaway winners over the years, but it always seems to be a very tight finish at this golf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And then McIlroy was a whisker away from trouble over the final hour \u2014 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\u2019t sure where it was when he walked off the tee.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t want to jinx him.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 Woods and Phil Mickelson at Bethpage Black \u2014 were the top two at a major.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s latest Masters title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve competed against him for a long time, and you don\u2019t win the amount of tournaments that he\u2019s won out here without being pretty resilient,\u201d Scheffler said.<\/p>\n
McIlroy is the first player since Adam Scott in 2013 to have taken three weeks off before winning the Masters. There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a good blueprint,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to take three weeks off before every major. … When I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s certainly a good way to prepare going into the next majors.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next one starts May 15, another stop in the journey without needing to set a target for how many.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) \u2014 Rory McIlroy went from becoming the sixth player with the career Grand Slam to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,77,82],"class_list":["post-602119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-international","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}