The Monday Rewind: Green Jackets and Grand Slams

Look at that photograph. Really look. What do you see? That’s Rory McIlroy breaking down in happy tears after he won the Masters on Sunday. But really look. Look at the way his cap is jammed over his eyes. Look at the way his elbows dig into the grass. Look at the yardage book in his back pocket. Maybe you can see just a touch of gray in the air that is showing. Look at the blurred fans in the background, some of them with their arms in the air, others looking on, mesmerized, feeling a little bit of what he’s feeling.

Look at that photograph. What do you see?

Rory McIlroy won the British Open at Royal Liverpool on July 20, 2014. He didn’t just win it … he crushed it. He led wire to wire. Less than two years earlier, he had won the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island by eight shots. About a year before that, he had won the U.S. Open by eight shots, setting the tournament scoring record in the bargain. Rory was 24 years old on that July day in 2014, and unlimited.

“What’s it like,” a reporter asked Tiger Woods that day, “to see Rory dominate in a way that only you have in a major?”

I’ve thought a hundred times about that question. Tiger was 39 at the time and had already won 14 major championships. He also had a balky back, a complicated history and a billion dollars. It was the first time I recall Tiger being asked a question quite like that, a question that sounded an awful lot like “What’s it like to hand the mantel of golf to the next generation?”

Tiger responded with what turned out to be a prophecy.

“The way he plays is pretty aggressively,” Tiger said. “When he gets it going, he gets it going. When it gets going bad, it gets going real bad. It’s one or the other.”

Look at that photograph again and think of those four words: One or the other. For 3,919 days after that Open Championship triumph, it was one or the other for Rory. When he was inspired, confident, assured — when he heard the music clearly — he played a sort of transcendent golf that only a handful of golfers have ever played. He did what Tiger did, what Jack did, he blew his drives past everyone else, and he hit iron shots so beautiful they should have been scored by John Williams, and he poured in birdies and eagles and from a bottomless cup. When he gets it going, he gets it going.

And when his confidence was shaky — when the music in Rory’s head was shrouded in static — he faltered, sometimes in unfathomable ways. He lost heartbreakers. He also missed a shocking number of major championship cuts. Different parts of his game would let him down. When it gets going bad, it gets going real bad.

Rory never was Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus. Yes, at their best, they all played similarly sublime golf, but Tiger’s superpower, Jack’s superpower, was not their ability to play that kind of titanic golf. It was their ability to shoot the lowest score when they were not playing that kind of golf. Jack once told me that he played at his very best in maybe one or two of his major championship victories. The rest were won through a combination of patience, grit, luck and waiting for their opponents to make their inevitable mistakes.

That simply isn’t Rory’s game. He’s an all-heart player. He seems to be an all-heart person. That’s what defines him. One player said the weirdest thing about Rory years ago. “He has perspective,” the player said. I specifically remember that word, perspective, and how the golfer didn’t exactly mean it as a compliment.

Take that moment on the 13th fairway on Sunday. McIlroy led the Masters by two shots. No, it had not been an easy day — he started the day with a jittery double bogey — but he had just cleared the biggest hurdle, Augusta’s 12th hole. No. 12 is where Masters dreams die, and he survived it, tamed it, parred it. Two-shot lead, six holes to go.

And he stood on the 13th fairway, a breezy pitching wedge distance from the flag, a birdie in his sights. This is the sort of shot that, on a normal day, is as easy as breathing for Rory McIlroy. Ah, but perspective. This wasn’t any breezy wedge from the flag. This was the 13th hole on Sunday of the Masters as he was trying to join Jack, Tiger, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen in the career grand slam club, the most hallowed club in the sports. This was the 13th hole of the tournament he has wanted to win since he was a boy. This was a tournament that had dished him heartbreak after heartbreak.

Perspective. You want it in life. You don’t want it on the 13th hole at Augusta.

Rory chunked his shot into the water.

“I wanted to cry for him,” his playing partner Bryson DeChambeau told reporters. "There were times where it looked like he had full control, and times where it’s like, what’s going on?”

But that’s Rory, right? One or the other. At No. 17, he hit an approach shot for the ages, one that rolled to two feet of the cup, and he made a birdie that gave him the Masters lead again with just one hole to go.

Then, on 18, he faced another breezy wedge shot, and all he had to do was put it on the green somewhere, two-putt, and put on the green jacket. He plunked it in the bunker instead. That led to a 6-foot putt. “To win the career grand slam,” were the words on the television screen as he lined up. I can only imagine those were the words flashing in Vegas-style neon lights in his mind.

Perspective. He missed the putt. We all wanted to cry for him.

But then, he kissed his wife, hugged his daughter, and went back to the 18th tee for his playoff against Justin Rose. And now, maybe, perspective was exactly what he wanted. It was just one putt. That’s also perspective. He was still a couple of great shots away from winning the Masters. That’s perspective, too. He crushed a perfect drive and faced another breezy pitching wedge. This time, he hit it pure, and the ball rolled to an easy birdie distance.

And as he stood over the putt, those same words — “To win the career grand slam” — appeared on the television screen, and maybe they blared in Rory’s mind again, but this time, he made the putt. This time, he won the Masters.

And he fell to his knees and cried. He wasn’t the only one.

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