I was a couple of minutes behind actual live coverage when Rory McIlroy’s ball landed on the 15th green and picked up pace as it passed the hole.
Having watched Patrick Cantlay send two into the drink from a similar position around 45 minutes earlier, I was already fearing the worst. McIlroy’s 3-iron approach shot was laser-like, pitched on the front portion of the green but took a huge hop forward and he ended up missing in the worst possible spot as he was left a chip that ran straight downhill.
A slight push into the bunker would’ve been far preferable, as would a pull long and left (providing it didn’t bound on down into the hazard over the back). Both these positions would’ve made par the most likely outcome, but he’d have been playing up and away from the water to the front from the bunker, and pitching across the slope which would’ve killed some of the pace from back left.
Whether he was taking actual direct aim at the flag from the fairway we might never know, but the shot he was faced with was treacherous at the best of times, but with the new green a little firmer, it was even tougher.
Still, the lack of buzzes from my phone filled me with hope. Nobody’d be messaging me if he leaves himself 10 feet for the birdie, an outcome I’d have welcomed with open arms even before seeing what eventually transpired. What I hadn’t counted on was Akshay Bhatia’s lengthy drop, and even lengthier walk to the green to mark his ball which had settled close to McIlroy’s line.
And then it happened… First one buzz, then two… There was no way I was checking, but I knew before he’d even drawn back his club. This wasn’t good. Still, there was hope. Maybe he holed it, there was an outside chance of that. The pin can do wonderful things when it’s hit dead-centre, but as we all know, that wasn’t the case.
Paul McGinley theorised that the drawn out wait Rory had to endure before hitting that pitch was the reason for the mistake, but even if it explains it, it doesn’t excuse it. He got greedy, he played a high-tariff shot that required perfect execution and he didn’t execute it perfectly. A bump and check into the upslope was the safe play, he’d probably have walked off with par and who knows what would’ve happened over the final three holes then.
But hindsight is always 20:20, and in hindsight, I also should’ve fast-forwarded to get myself back up to pace, but I was in the middle of writing a Justin Rose piece and had paused Sky Sports to transcribe his post-round comments, and I didn’t want to miss anything of consequence.
It was only when he’d cleaned up his double bogey putt that I dared touch my phone.
“Classic Rory” read the first message, the rest were unsuitable for print.
And it was classic Rory. At least classic Rory at a major championship. 15 was a mistake, a tough shot made even tougher by the conditions and it was his first real mistake of the afternoon. What followed on 17 was worse, though I’d caught up by then.
He was only two behind Scottie Scheffler by the time he’d reached the 16th tee, and though Justin Rose was a further three in front, it was Scheffler’s name and target that he’d have been marking for the previous 15 holes.
With the pin where it was, missing 17 long and missing by the distance that McIlroy did made saving par an extremely tough task, but to put it bluntly, his brain was scrambled. That’s the only way to make sense of how somebody can be in total control for 14-and-a-half holes, and then play his final four shots on 17 the way he did.
I’ve never been one to pile on the ‘it’s Harry Diamond’s fault’ train – we don’t know what he was saying to Rory walking off 15, we don’t know what he was saying to Rory as they stood over the approach to 17, we don’t know what he was saying to Rory as he prepared to chip, we don’t know any of it – but it’s clear that his friend and employer was in trouble and those ghosts of Augusta National past were morphing into ghosts of Augusta National present.
Maybe Diamond was as shell-shocked as Rory and the rest of us watching at home, maybe he wasn’t and was saying all the right things but the words just weren’t getting through. Either way, there was the sense that this was going to be yet another Masters where Rory McIlroy, for one reason or another, was destined for heartbreak.
And it may well be, but it’s far from over.
McIlroy’s resilience at bouncing back from upsets has been near-incredible, but he’s usually had a week or more to decompress, reassess, and put his shoulder to the wheel once more. This time, he has about 14 hours.
A 68 – the worst he seemed destined to score when he was plumb in the middle of the 15th fairway in round one – on day two likely gets him back into the mix, especially with the wind set to pick up steadily and be blowing a steady 20 mph when Scheffler takes to the course three hours after Rory does.
But that’s easier said than done, particularly when you’d spent almost four hours building something only to watch it crash down in the final 40 minutes.
No Masters winner has ever had two double bogeys in 72 holes, and McIlroy had two in the space of three holes.
It was never going to be easy, now it’s a lot tougher. But if he’s ever going to slay his white whale, he needs to put it behind him, summon the McIlroy we saw for 14 holes and let him play the final 54.
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