Rory McIlroy Looks to Rebound at The Masters

Published: 4th Apr 12 1:22 pm
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Rory McIlroy Looks to Rebound at The Masters
Allan Henry-US PRESSWIRE

Emerging from between the two cabins 50 yards to the left of the 10th tee box at Augusta National, Rory McIlroy’s Masters chances were fading fast. Camelia plays tough enough, but after snap hooking his tee shot off a cluster of pine trees and finding himself wedged in between those two cabins, McIlroy had turned the hardest hole historically on the course into the final resting place for a tournament that had seemed so alive to the 21-year old at the outset of the round.

McIlroy would go on to make triple-bogey, and later would card an 80 for one of the more disastrous collapses in Masters history, having watched a four-shot lead spiral into a 15th place finish. The spot where things went so horribly wrong has become a popular stomping grounds for Masters patrons, serving as the proverbial headstone to McIlroy’s 2011 Masters hopes, but a year has passed now and Rory’s chances, along with those of the other 96 players in the field, have been resurrected.

A lot has happened since that shot we’ve all become so enamored with — the shot that served as the lighthouse guiding Rory’s round back to harbor. The water’s were simply too choppy and Rory hadn’t yet sealed the cracks in the hull of his game, but Rory McIlroy would make his repairs and cast off again a couple of months later at the U.S. Open.

He ran through the field and he ran through Congressional. He ran to his first ever major championship at just 22 years of age, and ran away from the debacle at Augusta National.

Now, Rory McIlroy has come full circle and has arrived back at the place that forced him to find the strength within himself to carry on. It’s like an alcoholic staring down the neck of the bottle that once ailed him, but Rory has his chip — one year removed the disaster at The Masters (Don King approved rhyme.)

However, the struggles at The Masters aren’t something Rory McIlroy can simply forget. He’s, unfortunately, fallen into a dreaded category of golfers who’ve collapsed at Augusta: One that includes Ed Sneed, Scott Hoch, and, of course, Greg Norman. And now he’ll have to fight those demons on a yearly basis. He’ll have to fight that urge to think about left at Camelia.

Rory has the game and the mental makeup to overcome, he proved that by blasting the field at the U.S. Open in the wake of the devastation of The Masters, but to assume that Rory will simply move past something that so clearly affected him would be audacious.

Rory McIlroy can either use it as a catalyst for success or allow it to be an impetus for failure.

Careers can be both made and broken on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National, and the rest of Rory’s life starts Thursday. Hopefully his failures remain in their rightful resting place — past the pine trees and between those two cabins to the left of No. 10.

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