Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Tom McKibbin are flying the flag for Irish golf at the 90th edition of the Masters at Augusta National.
McIlroy, the defending champion and grand slam winner, is bidding to become the first person since Tiger Woods in 2002 to retain the Green Jacket and he arrives as relaxed as he has ever been heading into the Masters. Whether that is a good or bad thing will come to fruition as the tournament progresses.
Circumstantially, McIlroy arrived on site the earliest he has ever done and there is no doubt that the Holywood man drove up Magnolia Lane without the baggage of demons from Masters past.
“I think the nice thing now is instead of it being ‘Come on, Rory, you know you can do this’, it’s ‘back to back’,” said McIlroy.
“There’s a real positive connotation to it instead of, ‘jeez, Rory, we’ve been waiting a while. When are you going to get this done’?
“But it is so nice to walk around the property or be out on the golf course and, yeah, just not have that hanging over me, like it feels that it’s a big weight off my shoulders.”
McIlroy has spoken about taking a more aggressive approach to his back to back Masters bid.
“Look, you’re always going to have to pick and choose your spots around here, where to be aggressive and where not to, but I definitely think there are places where I could be more aggressive off the tee,” McIlroy said.
“I guess how uncomfortable I felt on some tee shots last year, so like the seventh through the 14th and the 17th.
“For me, if I’m going to hit 5-wood or 3-wood into the trees anyway, I may as well hit driver and get it close to the green.
“Yeah, there’s a few tee shots out here where I’ll just try to be a bit more aggressive, and then if you do hit a good tee shot, you turn a potentially tough hole into a birdie hole.”
McIlroy will be making his 18th Masters start, he has one victory and eight top-10 finishes while he has made the cut fourteen times with an average score of 71.45 from his 62 rounds and a career low of 64.
Shane Lowry mentioned earlier in the week that Irish golf owes a lot to Pádraig Harrington for opening the gates to a glorious last two decades.
Lowry has dreamed about McIlroy putting a green jacket on his shoulders and admitted that it would trump all of the “cool” things he has done in golf which includes winning the 2019 Open Championship on home soil at Royal Portrush, winning the 2009 Irish Open as an amateur and holing the winning putt at last September’s Ryder Cup. Not to mention his hole in one collection which includes the 16th hole here, 17th at TPC Sawgrass and 7th at Pebble Beach.
The 39-year-old has always been billed as tailor-made for Augusta National but he hasn’t quite put that to good measure. A best finish of T3 in 2022 remains his only top-10 finish ahead of his eleventh start although he has made the cut seven times.
With a scoring average of 72.82 and a low round of 68 from 34 career rounds around here, it’s probably high time that the Offaly man used all of his experience in the right way to launch a meaningful challenge.
Lowry has made a habit of good starts in the Masters, ranking inside the top-12 on five occasions, including in second place in 2016 and 6th in 2022.
Tom McKibbin becomes the 18th Irish player to play in the Masters. The Holywood clubman earned his way into the tournament via his Hong Kong Open win last year and he is looking to complete a career grand slam of his own in making all four major championship cuts at the age of 23. 44% of first-time players have made the cut at the Masters.
McKibbin opened with a 60 at Hong Kong Golf Club last year en route to a winning total of 27-under-par. 2025 was another consistent year for him with finishes of T3 in Singapore, 4th at the Spanish Open and T6 in Dubai while he was inside the top-20 at the Irish Open and BMW PGA Championship.
No rookie has won the masters since the late Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 although Sungjae Im (2020), Will Zalatoris (2021) and Ludvig Åberg (2024) finished second on their debut appearances.
Not since Brett Wetterich in 2007 has a rookie co-led the Masters after the opening round and not since Chris Di Marco in 2001 has a rookie led outright after day one. Jordan Spieth in 2014 was the last player to have a share of the lead after 54 holes on debut while Ralph Gudahl’s 54-hole outright lead in 1937 as a rookie hasn’t been beaten.
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