Rory McIlroy calm in run for career slam

What is it like standing on the precipice of true greatness – to be within arm’s reach of an achievement you only dared to dream about as a child?

Do you stand up and beat your chest and declare “Look at me!” to the world? Or do you try to shrink from the spotlight and quietly work to fulfill a goal?

Rory McIlroy doesn’t shy away from the attention. Yet the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland seemed uncharacteristically subdued in discussing the opportunity that awaits him at the Masters Tournament.

“My mind wanders to winning this tournament and thinking what it would be like and what it would mean,” he said. “It hasn’t really wandered beyond that.”

McIlroy and Tiger Woods are the two most prominent stories on opposite ends of the spectrum this week. McIlroy is the betting favorite to become the sixth player in history to complete the career slam – and the second youngest behind Woods. The slumping Woods is presumed more likely to miss the cut than to take home a fifth green jacket.

Yet the two seemed to be involved in some kind of Freaky Friday personality switch this week. Woods is flashing rare glimpses of personality, entering the Par-3 Con­test for the first time in 11 years and bouncing around the practice facility “rocking out” on hip-hop while the usually gregarious McIlroy seemed casually cool to the point of suspecting sedatives.

Whereas Woods didn’t even decide whether he was ready to play until last Fri­day, McIlroy said, “I’ve been ready for this thing to start for a week already.”

In truth, McIlroy has been readying himself for this moment all his life. As depicted in a new Nike ad that illustrates a young McIlroy being inspired to follow in Woods’ giant footsteps, there is a sense of mission potentially coming to fruition this week at the venue where Tiger launched his legend.

“Some people think I have been preparing for (this) since August 2014,” McIlroy said last week, “but the truth is, I’ve been dreaming of this all my life. It would be something way beyond my dreams if it worked out.”

Perhaps the calm McIlroy exhibited at the podium Tues­day was a method to keep from letting the moment overwhelm him. He’s shown an ability to handle major moments well even under intense scrutiny, much the way Woods did – albeit with less consistency.

Now here he is, facing the greatest opportunity to burn his name into golf lore. He knows what’s at stake in the next five days and has been thinking about it for some time.

“There is an interview with me when I was 7 or 8, saying I wanted to win all the majors and be the best golfer in the world,” McIlroy said in March. “It is what I have always wanted to do but just as me. I never wanted to break records. I never looked at someone and said, ‘I want to do that.’ This was just what I wanted to do – win the biggest tournaments in the world and be the best golfer in the world.

“As much as I said about not thinking about history or records, you would still be putting your name alongside those who have won the career Grand Slam. I feel like if you win the four majors, you are pretty much a complete player. You have been able to win in different conditions, on different golf courses, different setups. It sort of feels like if you can win all four … there is not much (you can’t do). You are a complete golfer.”

All that stands in his way of being “complete” is a course that he seems perfectly suited for yet has found vexing at times. For all he’s done right at Augusta National, he’s never walked away unscathed. In five straight Masters he’s posted a 77 or worse that nullified his chances to win.

“It hasn’t even been that it’s been a bad 18 holes,” he said. “It’s just been … a stretch of nine holes where it sort of got away from me.”

With all his length and control and talent, he’s produced “too many pars” on the par-5s that are the proven key to success. He yielded eight strokes to Bubba Watson last year on the par-5s and finished eight shots behind.

“Someone asked me the other day what my ideal setup would be for a major,” McIlroy said. “I said 18 500-yard par-4s. That’s what I like. Augusta isn’t like that. There is a lot of touch, a lot of finesse. That is the one thing I am trying to learn and get better at, that style of golf where you manage your way around golf courses. Maybe you just need a little more imagination. I think that’s the thing I need if I want to call myself a complete golfer.”

Expectations are that his seventh trip to the Masters will be the charm, just as it was at the Open Champion­ship last summer at Hoylake that moved him to the brink of the career slam. He hopes he’s found the proper keys to Augusta immortality.

“You come here to Augus­ta National, it’s such an intimidating place the first time that you get here, and felt like I may have shown it a little bit too much respect at times,” he said. “Instead of, you know, playing my normal game and playing the way I usually do. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned, just try and get it out of your head where you are and what it means and just try to execute your shots like you normally do.”

Come 10:41 a.m. Thursday, McIlroy will step to the first tee on a potential path to history. That calm he projected Tuesday afternoon will be harder to engage.

“I think the first tee shot is probably the only first tee shot of a tournament these days that I still get nervous at – the one that you get butterflies and your heart races a little bit faster than it does usually,” he said. “So, yeah, I still get that same feeling I did as a rookie back here in 2009.”

If all goes well, however, those dreams Mc­Il­roy first spoke of 18 years ago when Woods was starting out on his own historic path will be fulfilled. McIlroy will have indeed won all the majors and become the best golfer in the world.