Pros
He has worked out how to master Augusta
This will be McIlroy’s 18th Masters and while he has had his fair share of demons at Augusta National – which he went through in full view on a wild Sunday last year – they were exorcised to an extent when he beat Justin Rose in a playoff to finally win the Green Jacket.
McIlroy managed to iron out some of his weaknesses at Augusta last time out. The 10th and 11th holes were historically McIlroy’s worst – he went through them in one-under for the week, birdieing both on Friday. He made key birdies at the difficult fourth and 17th holes on Sunday, proving he has all the shots in his repertoire.
McIlroy’s long game is still in the zone
RM Block
Eleven of the last 13 Masters winners were better than +1.7 strokes gained tee to green in the three months leading into the Masters on Data Golf. Last year, McIlroy was second in that category heading into the Masters. This year he is tied fourth with +2 strokes tee to green alongside Jon Rahm, with only Si Woo Kim, Matt Fitzpatrick and Collin Morikawa ahead of him. On the PGA Tour alone, he is number one in that category.
McIlroy is also in the top 10 for strokes gained in approach play, an important metric at Augusta, on the PGA Tour, even better than last year when he was 18th heading into the tournament. Interestingly, world number one Scottie Scheffler, known for his elite ball-striking, is well off his usual standard in this category so far this season in 80th.
McIlroy’s resilience defies trends
McIlroy made double bogeys on the 15th and 17th in the opening round last year to leave him seven shots off the lead and outside the top 20. Nobody had won the Masters from outside the top 20 after the first round in the past 25 years, apart from Tiger Woods, nor had anyone won a Major with four double bogeys in a tournament since Woods in 2008.
McIlroy led by four strokes on the 13th tee on Sunday. Some 25 minutes later, when leaving the 14th green, he was one stroke behind Rose as his quest for a Masters threatened to go the way of Greg Norman. Yet he still managed to rescue the victory from the jaws of defeat. The level of resilience McIlroy showed last year to repeatedly bounce back means that even if he has a mini-disaster there is nobody in the field more capable of recovering.
Cons
He is not in hot form
McIlroy has not won in the build-up to the Masters, a major contrast to last year when he won twice in elite fields at Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass, the first time in his career he had won multiple tournaments heading into the Masters.
Five of the last six Masters winners had already won multiple times that year and nine of the past 12 winners had won at least one tournament worldwide before Augusta. McIlroy can point to a tied-second finish at the Genesis Invitational and a tied-third at the Dubai Invitational, but he is yet to win worldwide since the Irish Open last September.
He is slightly undercooked
McIlroy found a way to prepare for the Masters last year that worked, playing six times in advance. He planned for that again this time around but only completed five after a back injury at the Arnold Palmer Invitational forced a withdrawal. Two of his six events were in January, and a ho-hum tied-46th at the Players Championship is his only tournament with card in hand the month before Augusta.
Last year he played the Houston Open two weeks before to fine-tune his game, finishing tied-fifth. With his back injury a concern, he may be lacking a little sharpness, especially in Thursday’s round when he has traditionally struggled.
It is devilishly difficult to win back-to-back Masters
Nobody has defended their Masters title since Woods in 2002, Jack Nicklaus (1965-66) and Nick Faldo (1989-90) the only other players to achieve the feat. McIlroy will receive a lot of attention as the defending champion, although it may be comparable to what he received in the build-up to winning the career Grand Slam.
The world number two reflected on his victory and said last year’s final round at Augusta was “one of the toughest days I’ve ever had on the golf course” as he exploded with emotion on the 18th green after a rollercoaster Sunday. With that in his mind, he might find it difficult to get in the head space to put himself through it all again.
