Category Archives: Rory McIlroy

The world No2 carded a 79, which followed his 77 in the third round in 2012, and the 80 he shot in the fourth round in 2011

The words “Big Miss” became such a mantra for Tiger Woods’s former coach Hank Haney that he used them for the title of his book. Haney worked with Woods between 2004 and 2010, and he felt that the most common mistake people made when they talked about Woods was thinking of him as a go-for-broke golfer rather than a man who is always playing the percentages. “What Tiger abhors, what he has built his career on avoiding, are the kind of mistakes that produce bogeys or worse, wild tee shots, loose approaches, blown short putts,” Haney wrote. “These are the stuff of high scores, and after such a round a player or a caddie will often lament the ‘Big Miss’.”

On Saturday, for the third year in a row, the “Big Miss” hit Rory McIlroy at the Masters, and boy was he was left lamenting it. “The margins are so very small on this course,” McIlroy said. “I don’t know what I am going to do.” To be honest he sounded a little lost for an answer or an explanation. “I feel like I played smart enough, I mean, I’m playing it the way you should play it. My strategy is right, it’s just sometimes my execution is off.”

This time it came on the 11th. He was only one under par at the time, a sound enough score in a crowded field, four shots and one hot streak off the lead as it then stood. And then it happened. McIlroy drove into the trees, just as the defending champion Bubba Watson had a few hours earlier.

And, just like Watson, he pulled out a wedge and put his second straight into the water, to the satisfaction of the few sadists who gather at Amen Corner especially to watch such scenes, and the exasperation of innumerable fans.

From there McIlroy chipped way over the green, leaving himself coming a long way back to make a triple bogey. The sages gathered in the grandstand knew, as soon as they saw the pin position, that the 11th was going to be a battle for everyone who came that way on the third day of the Masters. It was not one that many players won. There were only three birdies on it all day long, stacked up against 18 bogeys, four double bogeys, and that one solitary treble – McIlroy’s.

Then the Big Miss hit again at the 15th. His second shot there pitched on the green, then rolled right back into the water. That left him with a double bogey, which took him to six over for the round. McIlroy grumbled about the fickle wind, saying its gusts had been responsible both times. His reason may have been right, but his response was not. Exasperated, he threw his ball back into the pond at the 17th, then screwed his next drive wide to the right so he ended up making another bogey. That dropped him back to 45th place, or “palookaville” as one of the patrons put it.

Only a couple of hours earlier a buzz had been running around the course as word spread that McIlroy had made a birdie on the 3rd to move to three under par. The kid was in contention. A large gallery gathered around him in time to watch an exquisite tee shot at the awkward par three 6th, setting up a putt for birdie that pulled up just a few inches short of the hole. As he said himself: “The first six holes I played nearly perfectly.”

Then things began to go awry. At the 7th he sliced his drive into the trees and had to play a low, hard drive from out of the pine needles. It ran right up into the bunker that guards the front of the green. His first shot hit the lip and rolled back down to his feet, but his second was good enough to leave him a simple putt for a bogey. No big deal, he said to himself. “That was fine. I was only a few shots off the lead going into the 7th hole, and then all of a sudden I play the 7th through the 11th in five over par and basically my chances for the tournament are done.” His round of – you’ll wince when you read this – 79, followed his 77 in the third round in 2012, and, of course, the infamous 80 he shot in the fourth round in 2011. It could be that the scars from that round are so severe they are still healing. The fact is that McIlroy’s most consistent performance at the Masters was when he made his debut here, back in 2009. His worst round then was a mere one over par.

McIlroy could probably learn a little from Lee Westwood, who says he has spent all week “plodding around the course, like you have to when it is tricky here.” Westwood, like Woods, just wants to avoid making the Big Miss. He went around in 73, which left him two under par, tied in 10th place. His trouble is there are plenty of good players between him and the Green Jacket. Only, the world No2 is not among them.

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