AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy leads the Masters by two shots over Bryson DeChambeau, but that is not who he will be playing in the tournament’s final round. Sunday at Augusta National will be McIlroy versus McIlroy.
“I’m just going to have to settle in and really try to keep myself in my own little bubble and keep my head down,” he said after shooting a third-round 66 to enter Sunday at 12-under-par.
Saturday will be the first time McIlroy has held a 54-hole lead at a major since the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla — his last major championship victory. He’s playing on a golf course that is the site of one of the worst collapses of his career — the 2011 Masters, where he held a four-shot lead on Sunday morning. And he’ll be paired with the man who came out on top while he crumbled in his most recent major heartbreak at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst — DeChambeau. The Masters is also the major championship that would complete McIlroy’s career grand slam.
This is all a reality check, whether McIlroy likes to admit it or not.
McIlroy does know what’s ahead of him. He’ll get back to his hotel room tonight, try as hard as he possibly can not to look at his phone, and watch an episode of “Bridgerton” before attempting to fall asleep. Then he’ll step up to the first tee at Augusta National at 2:30 p.m., and a subconscious row of hurdles will be ready to line up in front of him. It’s all in the science. When the mind finds itself in situations that even remotely resemble a painful past playing out again in the future, it is designed to raise red flags.
“It’s human nature. We were designed to survive. So, oh — don’t do that! That puts you in danger, so do this instead. It’s like it’s a defense mechanism. That’s exactly what it is,” McIlroy said, when discussing the concept of mental “scar tissue” in March with The Athletic.
On Tuesday, McIlroy revisited the topic on his own accord. Sometimes, as human beings, we behave in strange ways to protect ourselves. It is in our nature to fear that which has hurt us. McIlroy is not shy about the fact that he has felt himself putting up those sorts of barriers on the golf course, and yes — they have come back to bite him.
“It happens in all walks of life,” McIlroy said. “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. People, I think, 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.”
Rory McIlroy will seek to win his first Masters on Sunday. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
There was a period in McIlroy’s major career, from 2014 until 2020, where he says he was treating the majors like all the other tournaments, when in fact they are very different, both in the tests they present and the expectations that come with them. So in effect, McIlroy admitted to taking an avoidance-based approach for the first six years of his 11-year major championship drought. He played well at the majors anyway — his 21 top-10 finishes in majors from 2015 through 2024 are the most ever for a player in 10 years without winning — but the lack of trophies may be at least partially rooted in his mental strategy.
Many high-level performance psychologists aim to teach athletes the skill of acceptance. If you do not fully submit to the fact that being on the biggest stages of a sport or profession could result in a public disappointment — or worse, more than one — it is impossible not to operate out of prevention. That’s how the brain works, but the best athletes are the ones who don’t let it go there. If you do, the focus required to execute at your best becomes extremely difficult.
“If you show up at a place not having done some inner work to go, OK, I’m willing to accept the fact that there’s the same risk if not more risk this time than last time, then neurologically my brain is hardwired to provide me anxiety for this experience,” says performance psychologist Raymond Prior, who has coached multiple Masters champions. “This is a neurological non-negotiable for us.”
McIlroy has been increasingly vulnerable and open about his mental preparation for these very moments. He told The Athletic for a story that was published at the beginning of this week that in 2024, he experimented with hypnosis. He spoke at the Players Championship about managing his pre-round anxiety.
McIlroy is actively working with sports psychologist Bob Rotella, who is on site at the Masters. McIlroy has “cliché mantras” scribbled in the back of his yardage book as mental reminders this week, and he has been speaking with Rotella throughout the tournament.
All of the internal work adds up to one thing: The pursuit of a feeling, a mindset that only McIlroy can identify, but to him it represents success.
“If I can go home tonight and look in the mirror before I go to bed and be like, that’s the way I want to feel when I play golf, that, to me, is a victory,” said McIlroy on Saturday evening.
So far, McIlroy has achieved that sensation by believing in his own resilience. He’s been knocked down before, at St. Andrews and Los Angeles Country Club and Pinehurst in the last three years, and guess what? Each time, he got up. “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,” he said on Tuesday.
For McIlroy, remembering those very real experiences, and particularly the displays of strength that came after them, is the key to being able to sort through the alarm bells that his brain is hardwired to provide.
With all the noise tomorrow will bring, zeroing in on that mindset will be a tall task. There will be much more at play than just besting DeChambeau’s score.
(Top photo: Andrew Redington / Getty Images)