As Rory McIlroy enters Masters week the world No. 2 reveals he no longer fears getting “hurt” because “life goes on” after losses but he is confident and calm ahead of his quest for a Green Jacket
Rory McIlroy is ready to conquer the Masters in 2025(Image: YouTube)
Rory McIlroy has revealed he no longer fears getting his heart broken in Majors because “life goes on” before his latest bid to win the Masters. “I think that’s why I’ve become a little more comfortable in laying everything out there and being somewhat vulnerable at times,” he said.
The world No.2 will tee up for the 17th time at Augusta National on Thursday in search of his first Green Jacket. And it will also be the Ulsterman’s 11th attempt to complete his career Grand Slam by winning all four Majors. McIlroy, now 35, won his last Major at the 2014 US PGA. He has come agonisingly close at the 2022 Open and the last two US Opens.
And after winning The Players last month, the four-time Major winner said: “You have to be willing to get your heart broken and I think I went through a few years in my career where I wasn’t willing to put myself out there and I think that is possibility why I didn’t win as much as I could have from 2015 to 2020. I feel like I have figured it out and been on a pretty good stretch since.”
And asked about his comments in the Augusta press room today, McIlroy said: “I think it’s a self-preservation mechanism. It’s just more of a thing where you’re trying to not put 100 percent of yourself out there because of that.
“It happens in all walks of life. At a certain point in someone’s life, someone doesn’t want to fall in love because they don’t want to get their heart broken. People, I think, instinctually as human beings we hold back sometimes because of the fear of getting hurt, whether that’s a conscious decision or subconscious decision, and I think I was doing that on the golf course a little bit for a few years.
“But I think once you go through that, once you go through those heartbreaks, as I call them, or disappointments, you get to a place where you remember how it feels and you wake up the next day and you’re like: ‘Yeah, life goes on, it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be’.
Rory McIlroy reconciled with wife Eric Stoll last summer after announcing they will divorce in May(Image: Getty Images)
“And I think it’s going through those times, especially in recent memory, where the last few years I’ve had chances to win some of the biggest golf tournaments in the world and it hasn’t quite happened. But life moves on. You dust yourself off and you go again.
“I think that’s why I’ve become a little more comfortable in laying everything out there and being somewhat vulnerable at times.”
McIlroy, who split then reunited with wife Erica last year, has won two PGA Tour events before the Masters for the first time ever. And his relaxed, smiling demeanour was in stark contrast to his brief, seven-question press conference last year.
Erica Stoll and daughter Poppy were in Dubai in November to celebrate Rory McIlroy’s win at the DP World Tour Championship(Image: Getty Images)
And asked when he realised he had to change his attitude at Majors, McIlroy explained: “I think it was after the 2019 season. I remember I’d had a great year. I’d won four times around the world. I’d won the FedExCup. I had my best statistical season ever. But I didn’t have a great season in the major championships.
“I sort of made a commitment to myself from 2020 onwards that these four weeks a year I was going to — I went through a time of like, well, I’ll just prepare and I’ll just do the same things I do for every other week of the year but knowing that they’re not every other week of the year.
“Yeah, I made a commitment to myself to sort of earmark these a little bit more and to give a little bit more of myself in these weeks. And I think if you see my major record since 2020, COVID was a bit of a weird year, but 2020 up until now compared to, say, the five years previous when I won the PGA in ’14, I think you’ll see a big difference in that, and that was just sitting down and reflecting at the end of 2019 thinking that I need to approach these a little bit differently again.”
