AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | About the time when Rory McIlroy was preparing to roll his uphill birdie putt on the first hole of his second round at the Masters on Friday morning, a burst of cheers from the nearby eighth green forced him to back away.
For anyone who has been around Augusta National during the tournament, there is a soundtrack that sends messages quicker than social media. Though McIlroy likely didn’t know the cheer was for the resurgent and revitalized tournament leader Brooks Koepka, he no doubt got the message that he needed to make his own noise.
Instead, McIlroy made a quiet exit a few hours later, fortuitously timed so that he could take advantage of a weather delay that began just after he finished off his second-round 77 to escape without publicly sharing his thoughts on another week that wasn’t.
That’s OK.
We’ve seen that movie – at least a version of it – before, and the ending is too familiar.
Someday may never come for McIlroy.
This was going to be the year when the angels sang and McIlroy was going to float up the 18th fairway on Sunday, having thrown off the burden of expectations – all of them well-intentioned good wishes – and become just the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam.
Get that man a green jacket. Any size will do.
Instead, McIlroy failed the biggest test of this golf year, shooting 72-77 to miss the cut. He didn’t flame out because there was never a spark to begin with.
He had nothing when the moment asked for everything.
It happens.
There’s no shame in missing cuts, just as there’s no explaining why a game that can feel so manageable suddenly can turn a Siberian shoulder your way.
It’s just that in McIlroy’s case, especially at the Masters where he is living an unrequited romance, it somehow feels bigger and with a sense of finality, even though he’s only 33 years old, five years younger than Ben Hogan was when he won his first Masters.
“There’s been players before that (it) has been said that this course is tailor-made for those players, and they haven’t gone on to win a green jacket. That’s always in my mind, too.” – Rory McIlroy
The prisoner-of-the-moment question becomes: If not now, when?
As McIlroy was playing the par-5 13th hole Friday, already dancing on the cut line, a spectator said to a friend, “He just can’t play this golf course.”
That’s not true as seven top-10 finishes in his previous nine starts can attest.
It’s just that McIlroy hasn’t played it well enough often enough. A year ago he closed with a final-round 64 that lit the fuse on imaginations this year, but he bogeyed his opening hole in 2022 and never found his footing.
If you are into foreshadowing, McIlroy offered a bit of it before this Masters began.
“It’s a very difficult course to chase on,” McIlroy said Tuesday when asked why only one player – Tiger Woods – has come from outside the top 10 to win since 2005.
It was a veiled reference to McIlroy’s first-round troubles here in recent years and they continued Thursday. On one of the easiest scoring days in Masters memory, and with a first-round leaderboard that was top-heavy with stars, McIlroy was a wallflower.
He made five first-round birdies but offset them with three bogeys and a double, forcing his hand on Friday.
“It’s not disastrous,” McIlroy said after his opening round.
He saved that for Friday when he made four bogeys on the first nine holes. McIlroy chopped up the par-5 second, making a 6 there, then compounded that with a bogey at the short par-4 third hole that can make the best players look silly.
How slender is the line at Augusta National?
Playing his approach shot into the steeply sloped ninth green after a spectacular drive, McIlroy flew his second past the hole, expecting it to spin back toward the hole cut in the middle of the green.
Instead, it stayed where it landed and McIlroy was forced to putt sideways – toward the gallery rather than the hole. One group later, Tony Finau’s approach landed in the same spot and trickled back down the slope, leaving him a flat putt.
McIlroy came to Augusta National understanding the opportunity awaiting him. It was all fun and games recently when he was said to have needed only 19 putts around the place in a friendly game with his father.
The best thing that happened to McIlroy on Friday was being able to get away before the weather delays began.
Asked earlier in the week about the task McIlroy was facing, Tiger Woods didn’t hesitate.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Woods said about McIlroy winning the Masters.
Maybe, but another year has passed, and someone else will win the green jacket.
“There’s been players before that (it) has been said that this course is tailor-made for those players, and they haven’t gone on to win a green jacket. That’s always in my mind, too,” McIlroy said.
“It’s not just because a place is deemed perfectly set up for your game, it doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to win it one day. There’s more to it than that.”
McIlroy was reminded again this week.