Lapping up the pomp as Masters champion is what every golfer wants, but it also comes with more interviews, more presentations and – potentially – more distractions.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Jon Rahm finished tied 45th on his return after winning in 2023, later admitting he struggled to “adjust” with the demands of “a lot going on”.<\/p>\n
“If you’ve won the Masters, especially for Rory, it really is a dream come true. So you’re happy to go back there and I don’t think the additional commitments are ever a distraction,” said Brown.<\/p>\n
“Rory has done everything he set out to do in his career, but there are always more goals. Now he wants to defend it. <\/p>\n
“As a professional sportsman, you’re always striving for the next win. What can I improve to take me to the next level?<\/p>\n
“Golf’s particularly difficult because one week you’re a champion, the next minute you’re a chicken. You can’t take your foot off the gas.”<\/p>\n
McIlroy’s form going into the season-opening major provides little indication about his chances.<\/p>\n
Three top-10 finishes in his opening four events of 2026 bode well, before a back injury forced his withdrawal from the Arnold Palmer Invitational and left him “still not 100%” at the PGA Tour’s flagship Players Championship three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
He says not playing competitively since has provided a “good opportunity to address the issue” before Augusta – which is notoriously physically taxing.<\/p>\n
Therefore, it seems the more pertinent factor in McIlroy’s hopes this week is the trust he has gained in his tactical ability.<\/p>\n
“Augusta over the years has made me quite tentative at times, especially with approach play,” McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
“By becoming a better putter, by working on my short game and becoming better around the greens, that probably allowed me to become more aggressive with my approach play.<\/p>\n
“I think that’s been a big part of the reason why I’ve now eventually won there, but why my play has got better there over the years.”<\/p>\n
McIlroy feels the Masters is the major where he could potentially end his career with the most success.<\/p>\n
Becoming a multiple champion this week, and a rare back-to-back winner, would be another golfing mountain which he has managed to scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lapping up the pomp as Masters champion is what every golfer wants, but it also comes with more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-518888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}