- Rory McIlroy, 35, is hoping to secure glory at the Masters over the coming days
- McIlroy won the last of his four majors more than 10 years ago back in 2014
- The Northern Irishman said he is well-prepared ahead of this year’s tournament
Rory McIlroy is ready to go through ‘heartbreak’ again as he faces his Masters reckoning.
The Northern Irishman has had a series of near misses on the hunt for his first major since 2014 and admitted he has held back on the course for fear of failure ahead of his latest attempt to end the drought in Augusta this week.
McIlroy, 35, explained: ‘At a certain point in someone’s life, someone doesn’t want to fall in love because they don’t want to get their heart broken.
‘Instinctually as human beings we hold back sometimes because of the fear of getting hurt, whether that’s a conscious decision or subconscious decision, and I think I was doing that on the golf course a little bit for a few years.
‘But once you go through that, once you go through those heartbreaks you get to a place where you remember how it feels and you wake up the next day and you’re like, “yeah, life goes on, it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be”.
‘It’s going through those times, especially in recent memory, where the last few years I’ve had chances to win some of the biggest golf tournaments in the world and it hasn’t quite happened. But life moves on. You dust yourself off and you go again.’
Rory McIlroy is ready to go through ‘heartbreak’ again as he faces his Masters reckoning
McIlroy has had many near misses on the hunt for his first major – and fifth overall – since 2014
McIlroy pictured after winning the fourth of those majors at the PGA Championship in 2014
McIlroy, who insisted his elbow ‘is good’ after recent treatment, added that he is reading Grisham’s 2018 murder mystery as he seeks to solve his 11-year run.
‘For the first time in a long time am reading a novel. I actually got some fiction into my life. It’s a John Grisham book, The Reckoning. It’s got off to a pretty good start.’
McIlroy, who is also watching Bridgerton, is second favourite for the green jacket behind last year’s champion Scottie Scheffler and believes he is ready for the challenge.
‘Over the course of my career I think I’ve showed quite a lot of resilience from setbacks, and I feel like I’ve done the same again, especially post-June last year and the golf that I’ve played since then, and it’s something that I’m really proud of,’ he said following victories this season at Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass.
‘You have setbacks and you have disappointments, but as long as you can learn from them and move forward and try to put those learnings into practice I feel like is very, very important. I feel like I’ve showed that quite a lot over the course of my career.
‘When you have a long career like I have had, luckily, you sort of just learn to roll with the punches, the good times, the bad times, knowing that if you do the right work and you practice the right way, that those disappointments will turn into good times again pretty soon.’
