{"id":387688,"date":"2026-04-08T07:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/387688\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T07:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:16:12","slug":"conor-mckeon-youve-been-warned-the-rory-mcilroy-bandwagon-has-already-left-the-station-at-augusta-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/387688\/","title":{"rendered":"Conor McKeon: You\u2019ve been warned, the Rory McIlroy bandwagon has already left the station at Augusta National"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nThe defending champion draws crowds to the fairways as everyone is pulled into his orbit\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Rory McIlroy walks to the green on the sixth hole during a practice round ahead of the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club. Photo: AP Photo\/David J. Phillip\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/57a53e77-9a06-.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Rory McIlroy walks to the green on the sixth hole during a practice round ahead of the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club. Photo: AP Photo\/David J. Phillip<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It was cool and overcast when Rory McIlroy strode out from the gloaming on to Augusta\u2019s first tee yesterday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">By the time we all settled down for our southern-style grits, the place was baked in warm Georgia April sun. McIlroy had cast a spell over the day and had everyone was sucked into his orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defending champion draws crowds to the fairways as everyone is pulled into his orbit Rory McIlroy walks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7277,61,60,1394,112,170752],"class_list":{"0":"post-387688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-conor-mckeon","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-rory-mcilroy","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-us-masters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}