AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy didn’t waste any time getting out of Augusta National Golf Club on Thursday afternoon. After a brutal finish to an otherwise impressive opening round at a Masters that feels like it has more pressure on him than most, it’s easy to understand why.
After making a pair of double bogeys in his final four holes of the day — going from three strokes off the lead to seven — McIlroy just wanted to get out of there. He walked right past reporters after turning in his scorecard and went home. With the day he had, he wanted to relax and hang out with his 4-year-old daughter, Poppy.
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“Once I left the property last night, I just sort of tried to leave what had happened here,” McIlroy said on Friday. “I rushed out of here to go home to see Poppy before she went to bed. So that was sort of nice to get to see her before she went to sleep. … I feel like I just did a good job of resetting.”
Clearly, that worked out for him. A day removed from the finish that seemingly knocked him out of contention at yet another major championship, McIlroy is suddenly right back near the top of the leaderboard. McIlroy fired a bogey-free 68 on Friday, which has him just two shots back of leader Justin Rose at the midway point of the Masters.
McIlroy, after going 1-under on his front nine, took off after making the turn and absolutely dominated Amen Corner. He made two straight birdies to open his back nine, and then he hit a wild approach shot out of the pine straw at the par-5 13th. McIlroy launched that ball and landed it within just 10 feet of the cup.
While he was initially hit with a bit of a panic attack right after making contact with the ball — “When the ball was in the air, I was like, ‘You idiot, what did you do?’” he said — it left him with an easy eagle putt.
That eagle forced the scoreboard operators sitting above the No. 14 tee box to finally swap McIlroy’s name into the box for the first time all day.
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“I rode my luck a little bit with that second shot, but was nice to take advantage of it,” he said.
McIlroy made one more birdie the rest of the way, at the par-5 15th where he made one of his doubles the day before.
“I was so frustrated last night because I played so well, and you can make these big numbers from absolutely nowhere on this golf course, just like the most benign position,” McIlroy said.
“So it was a good reminder. It was a good reminder last night that you just have to have your wits about it you on every single golf shot.”
Though he’s now rebounded and has played 34 good holes of golf, McIlroy was quick to point out that he’s only at the midway point of the tournament when he sat down after his round on Friday afternoon. He still has a long way to go to win what would not only be his first career green jacket, but would also both complete the career grand slam and end his major championship drought that dates back to 2014.
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There are plenty of other big names right with him on the leaderboard capable of winning the green jacket, too. Bryson DeChambeau jumped to 7-under to get into second, and top-ranked Scottie Scheffler is lurking just a few strokes behind them.
A stumble like McIlroy went through Thursday could have easily derailed the entire week in eastern Georgia. For some in the field, that would have been inevitable.
But McIlroy, having made it out the other side, is once again in a position to win on golf’s biggest stage. That’s all he could’ve asked for.
“I just backed up the belief that I have in myself, and the belief that I’m as resilient as anyone else out there,” McIlroy said. “Again, like I’ve been really proud of how resilient I’ve been the whole way through my career, and I think today was just another example of that.”
Now comes the hard part.
