WGC Match Play: Soon, Rory McIlroy will start his yearly quest to win The Masters at Augusta National and finish the career Grand Slam, making him the sixth person in history to accomplish this feat.
The men that have accomplished that milestone are Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen. Rory McIlroy has been predicted to follow them ever since he won The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in July 2014, and likely even before that.
In addition to winning the US Open in 2011 and the PGA Championship the following year, he also won the 2014 PGA Championship and, most recently, the 2014 PGA Championship.
McIlroy hasn’t yet achieved success at Augusta National, though. The Grand Slam wait continues despite seven top-10 finishes, including five in a row between 2014 and 2018.
The Ulsterman’s greatest finish came last year when he finished in second place, three strokes behind the champion Scottie Scheffler, thanks to a fantastic final-round 64 that featured an amazing hole-out from a greenside bunker on the 18th hole.
Over the Easter weekend, McIlroy’s goal is to improve upon his third-place result at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. The 33-year-old looks eminently capable of accomplishing so after excelling en route to that finish with six victories out of seven.
“There are so many good things to remember. Following his victory over world No. 1 Scheffler in the third-place play-off,” McIlroy remarked, “If you had told me last week that I would make it to the Sunday of the Match Play, I would have taken that.
“I might spend a day playing around up [at Augusta National]. I went last week, but I don’t see any harm in going up again; after that, practise is key.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything to do. I believe my game is in excellent form, so I’ll just keep plugging along, practise the strokes I’ll need for Augusta, and off we go.”
When McIlroy missed the cut at The Players two weeks ago, he was cool with the putter but errant with his driver.
He added that after “sacrificing a little bit of time” acting as the unofficial spokesperson in the game’s conflict with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series, he wanted to return to “being solely a golfer.”
At the Match Play, he was unquestionably back to being a golfer.
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