Rory McIlroy has lived a few different lives already at the Masters as he seeks to capture golf’s ultimate lifetime achievement award. Through 13 holes on Thursday he looked very much like someone on a collision course with the career Grand Slam, a triumph worth waiting for at a track where he’s always snatched defeat from the jaws of potential victory. But he missed a golden opportunity to move to 5 under when his 8-foot birdie attempt wobbled just wide, setting up double-bogey calamities on No. 15 and 17. As sun set it appeared most of his hope and opportunity to finally break free of this now decade-long major spell was setting with it.
Golf Channel’s Live From the Masters came on the air with McIlroy’s furious reversion to the mean still fresh. Rich Lerner mentioned that he needed to scrap all his complimentary notes about the Northern Irishman’s game as a healthy red-number cushion had evaporated back to even. He, Paul McGinley and Brandel Chamblee, like the rest of the viewing audience, seemed a bit stunned at the roller-coaster ride and discussion turned to the idea that McIlroy had potentially ruined his chances before Justin Rose slept on a lead.
That was a bridge too far for Chamblee.
“Rory has come from six and eight [shots] back before and won tournaments in one round of golf,” the analyst said. “So, as we sit here and talk about, ‘it was a big mistake and it was mindboggling,’ lest we forget how good he was playing right up until 15. Rory is a once-in-a-generation golfer and so I’m not going to sit here and say he blew himself out of the golf tournament. He shot even par, and I promise you he sits there and he says, ‘I’m four back, and I got all the time in the world to get this done.’”
It wasn’t just the quantity of shots McIlroy had to make up, it was the quality of players between him and his goals. Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau, Rose and a who’s who of major champions were large obstacles to be leapfrogged. Then came Friday and a world-class 66 from a world-class winner not ready to give up an afternoon tee time at the place one is hardest to book. He’s now two shots behind Rose instead of eight. DeChambeau is within a single birdie. Scheffler emerged from a shady magnolia looking up from the hard-charging chaser.
The same trio on Golf Channel once again reacted.
“Rory going for the Grand Slam,” Chamblee said. “Be the second person to do it in 60 years and should he pull it off, today may go down as the most important round that Rory has ever played.”
Golf Central and its on-site Live From is not a program that’s prone to hyperbole, a welcome change from other sports titles that seem to exist only to capitalize on the quick dopamine rush of a disingenuous take. So it’s a bit surprising to hear something that might border on it. And yet when you dissect the comment, even with the tens of thousands of rounds McIlroy has played and how often those have ended with hardware in his hands, it’s difficult to argue.
For all the story lines that abound between patches of pine straw, this is McIlroy’s Masters until someone else becomes the main character. His quest for golf immortality is the A-block. Through two days he’s been a volatile market, swinging wildly up and down. Over the next 36 holes he may richly reward those who bought the dip.
We’re halfway home and it feels like the protagonist has already lost and won the tournament. Golf, though, always chooses its own adventure and McIlroy’s second-round resurrection may not be immortalized in the history books but rather relegated to a minor footnote should the familiar pratfalls that have plagued him in the biggest moments once again rise to the surface.
And yet, how intoxicating is the allure of believing that we all witnessed something special? A fulcrum on which one of the finest careers swung upwards. How tantalizing that the next most important round in McIlroy’s life comes today. How fun to think that all will pale in comparison to Sunday. It would be fitting if the hardest leg of his journey had to be “won” twice or even three times. It would be poetic if he shook off the setbacks in real time and answered all the setbacks and frustration.
The thing that’s so compelling about McIlroy at this point of his walk is that he is on one hand the most known entity and a complete unknown. There’s perhaps only one player capable of being better than him but few that can have things fall apart when they need to hold it together. Perhaps we’re looking at the most important weekend among all the weekends he’s spent entertaining us. Time will sort all of that.
It’s certainly shaping up to be the most interesting.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brandel Chamblee Put Rory McIlroy’s Masters Friday Recovery Into Perfect Perspective.