AUGUSTA, Ga. — The ghosts of Augusta National haunt many a great golfer, nightmares fueled by long days and lost shots, of what might have been and what never was. For every great Masters champion the course has produced — think Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, or Tiger Woods — there is a string of near-miss finishers — think Greg Norman or Ernie Els — who can only lament how close they were.
Rory McIlroy wants so much to be one of the winners, but for yet another year, appears headed to be one of the lamenters.
He did his best during Saturday’s third round to offset yet again the damage he had done to himself in Round 1, driving straight and putting true as he carded a 5-under 67, which put him at 8 under for the tournament.
But on a course that is playing soft and friendly, on a weekend that has Dustin Johnson threatening to run away and hide at 16 under with a four-shot lead, the 75 that McIlroy shot across Round 1 dug him too deep a hole to escape.
“I have zero thoughts about winning this tournament right now,” McIlroy said after finishing his day, a point at which the streaking Johnson was at 14 under through 12. “If DJ just plays his game, he’s going to get to at least 16. Yeah, eight shots, being a realist here, I just need to go out and shoot a good one [Sunday] and see where it puts me.”
Unfortunately for the 31-year-old McIlroy, Augusta National seems pretty determined to continue putting him in his place, back in the middle of the same conversation that started in 2011, when his three-day lead and anticipated victory imploded in a hail of 10th-tee misfires and a heartbreaking back-nine trudge to disappointment.
With every passing year, the quest to win that elusive green jacket intensifies. It is one of the most enduring story lines in the game, completing as it would the career Grand Slam, as well as countless weeks as the world No. 1. That the Masters is played on the one course that seems so perfectly matched to McIlroy’s booming yet creative game only adds to what feels like universal endorsement that it should happen.
Three-time Masters champ Phil Mickelson declared back on Tuesday, before the tournament started, “He’ll win and complete the Grand Slam. He’s too great a player not to,” adding, “he has so many majors already and such a strong game that winning a Masters will happen. And when it does, I think he’s going to win a few.”
Mickelson knows the drill, famously shedding that best-player-never-to-win-a-major at the ripe old age of 33 when he won the first of his three Masters in 2004. He has no simple mental road map to hand McIlroy as a guide, only the confidence that McIlroy will find his way eventually.
It’s a map that McIlroy has been drawing since that infamous 2011 meltdown, one that was painful and sad, yes, but instructive and important, too, leading McIlroy toward major success elsewhere. He demolished the ensuing US Open field at Congressional, the first in a string of four major wins in the next four years.
“I think my grit has come from my failures, and I don’t have to look any further than this place in 2011,” he said this week. “I learned a lot from that day. I learned a lot in terms of what I needed to be and what I didn’t need to be. You know, I needed to be myself. I didn’t need to try to be like anyone else.”
McIlroy’s penchant for introspection sets him apart from many of his peers, perhaps no one more so than Johnson, whose game is defined by an uncomplicated approach and an unflappable demeanor. With a wink in his eye and a sincere nod of appreciation, McIlroy described Johnson, a good friend on tour, as, “see ball, hit ball, see putt, hole putt, go to the next.” It’s an attitude McIlroy called “one of the best towards the game of golf in the history of the game.”
But not one he crafts himself. He thinks about everything, and then, for good measure, thinks about it again. This year, he’ll be thinking about that awful first round, one that began Thursday, was halted by rain, and concluded Friday morning. That he couldn’t fix what had gone wrong Thursday during those restarted nine holes, that it took a “colorful” pep talk from Augusta member and friend Jimmy Dunne to get him going for Round 2, rest assured he will be thinking about that for a while.
“I try to view everything as a learning experience, but yeah, I’ll look back at that and rue some of the shots that I hit and some of the thought processes I had,” he said, “and just try to learn from it and be better the next time.”
Next times eventually run out, though.
Except, of course, at Augusta, where past champions are invited back to compete every year. There was McIlroy on Saturday, alongside playing partner Bernhard Langer, the 63-year-old two-time champ whose drives were landing somewhere close to 100 yards short of his own, but whose crafty game and familiarity with the course pulled him into a second straight 73.
“I try to think about what scores I would shoot if I was hitting it where he hit it. Honestly it’s like me playing an 8,500-yard golf course. That’s what it’s like. It’s so impressive, just the way he methodically plots his way around and gets it up and down when he needs to. It’s really cool to watch,” McIlroy said.
“And yeah, I wish in 30 years' time I’m back here doing the exact same thing.”
All it takes is one. Just ask Jordan Spieth, whose presence this year barely registers, who could have three Masters titles but only has one, but who knows, like we all do, that the one makes all the difference. He had a seat at Tuesday night’s Champions dinner, he has a stall in the Champions' locker room, he has the lifetime pass through the gates at Magnolia Lane.
That’s what Rory wants, but for yet another year, it seems sadly out of reach.
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.
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