Renowned super-coach Butch Harmon reckons Rory McIlroy still has time on his side but he also needs a low opener if he’s to capture the one major championship he needs to join golf’s elite Grand Slam Club.
This week marks a 14th appearance for McIlroy since the then curly-haired 19-year-old made his Masters debut in 2009.
McIlroy arrives after missing the halfway cut at the Valero Texas Open and making just one birdie on day two and that was at his penultimate hole in San Antonio.
The four-time major champion needs a Masters green jacket to add to his 2011 US Open, 2012 & 2014 PGA Championship and 2014 Open Championship victories to become just the fifth player to win the coveted Grand Slam.
McIlroy went all so close at the 2011 Masters before imploding on the final day, and since then his best Augusta finish fourth in 2015 while he was T5th in both 2018 and ’21.
Supercoach Butch Harmon & Rory McIlroy and with Harmon saying time is still on McIlroy’s side to win a maiden Masters
Of note, and maybe an omen this week for McIlroy, is that three players won a maiden Masters at either their 14th or more attempt – Billy Casper (14th in 1970), Mark O’Meara (15th in 1998), and Sergio Garcia (19th in 2017).
It’s for this reason, Harmon suggests, that McIlroy can still become a Masters winner.
“Jack Nicklaus proved when he won in ‘86 that time doesn’t run out on these players and Mickelson proved it with the PGA win at 50 years old,” Harmon said speaking on SKY.
“So, I don’t think time is running out on Rory, but he might be getting a little frustrated with himself that he hasn’t won, not just the Masters or another major in quite a while.
“There are so many good players out there today. One guy doesn’t dominate anymore. Just look at our world number one’s ever since Tiger Woods left the arena. You have one guy number one for a while then he falls off another guy comes in. I don’t think we’ll see anybody do what Woods did or what Norman did. Hold it year after year after year, because I think the quality of the play on both tours you’ve got a tremendous amount of young people.
“Every time I watch a European Tour event now on The Golf Channel I’m like who are these guys? I’ve never heard of this guy. Look how good this guy is and we’ve got a lot of young ones like that too.
“So, golf is in a good place. I mean, it’s hard to win. As I said earlier, it’s hard to win a regular tournament, much less a major. Usually, the ones that come through in a major are the ones that have been there before because a lot of it becomes mental and how you handle your nervous system and your decision-making process in the heat of the battle and so on and so forth.
“They’re all good. We know that. It’s not like the old days where we only had 10 or 15 guys who were going to win these tournaments. Every time you tee it up, there are 100 guys who could win now”.
This year’s field of just 91 includes 18 former Masters winners, and probably seven of those who you could probably rule out of contention along with a handful of first-timers, and four amateurs.
As well, triple Masters-winning Phil Mickelson is not playing while another handful of big-names, including Aussie Jason Day, didn’t qualify.
It’s why Nicklaus’s astute observation that the Masters is the easiest of the four majors to win, and not anything to do with the course set-up, but given the limited number of ‘invitees’ still rings true this week.
“Nicklaus has always said he thought the Masters was the easiest of the majors to win and the reason being, you have a lot of past champions playing”, said Harmon.
“You have four amateurs playing, you have a lot of first-timers that have never played Augusta National. So, Jack always felt that it was easier to win the Masters than any of the other majors because he felt he only had to beat about 10 or 12% of the field because the rest of them weren’t going to have a chance”.
Though crucial for McIlroy this week will be getting out of the blocks to a fast start and going low early, something we’ve not seen from him in recent Augusta showings. Indeed, checking his Masters first-round stats, McIlroy has broken 70 in the first round on three occasions in 2011, 2016, and 2018, and what’s more hurtful he’s posted Augusta opening scores of 73, 75, and 76 in his last three starts.
“If you are looking at a contender this week then Rory would be the one”, said Harmon. “He has a chance to win the Masters, and it’s the only one he hasn’t won. We’d all love to see him do it and he definitely has the game for it. He’s a high ball hitter, which you need to be at Augusta. Because the ball’s gotta come down on those greens softly.
“So, I’m very anxious to see what he does and how he starts off, especially the opening round. We get a lot of info on guys in the first major of the year and how they play the first day”.
The golf world is also just as anxious to see how McIlroy performs in this week’s 86th hosting of the Masters.
