adminAUGUSTA. — Rory McIIroy came here to tear up trees.
The trees were evidently quite willing to comply, which is far more can be said for any of the sticks in McIlroy’s bag.
It wasn’t until late on Saturday morning when the inevitable was confirmed, which is that the world No 2’s latest tilt at the Grand Slam was over.
With it, he has another year to ponder and chew on the green mysteries of Augusta National and his ongoing inability to solve them.
Even the weather couldn’t save him. Between the final bogey of his 77 on Friday and the belated conclusion of the second round, it chucked it down.
The wind blew.
The cut line shifted a stoke from two over to three.
And still he missed it by two, a full 17 strokes behind Brooks Koepka, a couple off a Tiger with one good leg, and four adrift of that wily 62-year-old Fred Couples.
They all went off to play the third round, which lasted only a few hours before play was suspended at 3.18pm locally with Koepka leading on 13 under through six holes, ahead of Jon Rahm on nine under, one worse than he began.
So let’s go back to Tuesday, when all seemed well with his world. McIlroy was relaxed. He was ready to win his first major in nine years and the one that has always eluded him.
What he needed most, McIlroy told us, was a fast start and the mental fortitude to keep it together.
Alas, the gun fired and he did not. His opening 72 was the sixth time since 2015 that he has failed to go under par in his first loop.
His subsequent 77 was his worst here since 2016.
His mind?
The easy conclusion is he succumbed to enormity of his task, but the finer brushstrokes will have to wait because when he left on Friday he did not speak to reporters.
But what more could he say?
Often those operating on the doorstep of sporting greatness can be swallowed by the scale of what they want to achieve.
It is too early to say that of a 33-year-old with limitless talent, but with each passing year you can only imagine it becoming harder to yield to the psychological teachings of one shot at a time, playing the ball and not the occasion.
For McIlroy, the Masters, and the majors in general, will always be his shot, his occasion, and each time one slips by, or in this case hurtles away, the next one carries a little more weight.
It is a brutal cycle he must break, and it is perhaps ironic that the man with whom he shares most in common on this topic is Greg Norman, his great LIV adversary.
You suspect it is a call that will never be made, but however McIlroy addresses it, he needs to find a way to clear the mental traffic he seems to encounter at this grand place. — Mailonline
Online Reporter