We’re doing this again, aren’t we?

We thought we had the weekend off from Rory McIlroy and his forever war, his clash between the legend he once embodied and the ghost of greatness he still chases, a battle that eclipses everything beyond those four major weeks that outweigh all others. A war that would march on to Quail Hollow after two careless doubles on Thursday at Augusta National shattered any hope of armistice this week. The cruelty lies in how a mere half-hour window seemed to incinerate months of promise, leaving McIlroy shell-shocked as he bolted past the press toward the parking lot, and honestly who could blame him? How many times can a man articulate his failure to recapture what the world believes is still rightfully his? The devastation cut because his recent form had whispered possibilities—this Masters would be the Masters. Now, with another chance squandered, the question would haunt: If not now, with everything aligned, then when? If ever?

Yet … speaking among friends? … it was freeing. We savored an upcoming weekend unburdened by existential drama, free from analyzing every shot for deeper meaning about the Northern Irishman’s technique, his strategy, his mental fortitude, his heart. No longer did we have to debate whether golf gods exist—they couldn’t, as no higher power would inflict such persistent torment on one soul. Now, we could roll up our sleeves, sip Azalea cocktails at Amen Corner and immerse ourselves in Augusta’s splendor before gathering Sunday evening to properly acknowledge Scottie Scheffler’s inevitable triumph. For once, we could just enjoy the tournament for what it was—a golf celebration, not another chapter in an ongoing saga of redemption.

But now McIlroy, that magnificent, maddening virtuoso, has forced our hand. We are going to believe. We have to believe. Because he has his bounce back, that kinetic, barely harnessed electricity of a man told the pool deck is slippery but sprints anyway, moving with the assurance of someone who’s danced at the edge so often that he knows danger by its first name. Because he’s cut a seven-shot deficit after the opening round into a manageable hill to climb, two shots back of Justin Rose at halftime. Because for once, the universe decided to favor his boldness. Because this is Augusta National, where the ridiculous is routine.

What could possibly be the takeaway after McIlroy turned in a bogey-free Friday 66, which included a back-nine 31—and a birdie on the same par 5 he made double less than 16 hours earlier—that has him firmly in the mix as the Masters turns to the weekend?

“I was just looking for my name,” McIlroy said, laughing at looking up at the leaderboard Friday afternoon to see what he had done. “I was not really worried about the others.”

We tried like hell to strangle any flicker of hope, and McIlroy practically held the pillow with a lukewarm 35 going out. Decent golf, sure, but he might as well have been playing a different tournament than Justin Rose, who was flirting with nine under this afternoon. Even when McIlroy started the back nine birdie-birdie, it only raised eyebrows among those beautiful, amnesia-blessed goldfish who haven’t been paying attention to the endless loop of history that’s kept McIlroy locked in his own personal Alcatraz for over a decade.

But then jailbreak happened, McIlroy’s prayers finally answered past Amen Corner when a shot he had absolutely no business attempting from the pine straw right of 13 somehow carried Rae’s Creek by the slimmest of margins. We know this shot defied all logic because McIlroy himself abandoned it mid-swing, his hand dropping from the club in that unmistakable gesture of surrender, certain he had watched his tournament really disappear into golf’s most famous waterway. When the ball improbably found safe harbor, McIlroy doubled over at the waist, momentarily crushed beneath the weight of his own breathtaking gamble—a man simultaneously drained and electrified by the audacity of what he’d just accomplished.

“When the ball was in the air, I was like, you idiot, what did you do?” McIlroy admitted. “It’s one of those ones, as well, it’s a pin that even if you do hit it into the hazard, it’s a pretty, not a routine up-and-down, but it’s a little easier than, say, where the pin was yesterday in that front section. Yeah, I rode my luck a little bit with that second shot, but was nice to take advantage of it.”

Maybe there are golf gods, and they’ve realized, “This poor McIlroy fella has suffered enough.”

McIlroy seized the providence offered, draining the eagle putt with the conviction of a man granted rare reprieve. He added a birdie at the 15th and safeguarded pars coming home, leaving him just two shots off the afternoon clubhouse lead.

“I think overall just proud of myself with how I responded today after the finish last night,” McIlroy said. “I just had to remind myself that I played really good golf yesterday, and you know, I wasn’t going to let two … you know, two bad holes sort of dictate the narrative for the rest of the week. But yeah, just ultimately, yeah, just proud of how I got back into it today.”

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Stephen Denton

So here we stand, obligated to remind you that McIlroy’s major tally of four has been at four for some time. That while he may be this weekend’s leading man, he performs within a formidable ensemble. Justin Rose has been too brilliant here—both this week and historically at Augusta—to be casually dismissed. Bryson DeChambeau, who vanquished McIlroy at Pinehurst, lurks one stroke ahead on the leaderboard, playing with uncharacteristic restraint that makes the King of Content dangerous. There’s Scheffler, whose game is so complete and meticulously controlled that McIlroy himself has confessed to coveting its precision. And looming largest of all remains the course itself, which shattered him in 2011 and has stubbornly prevented him from reassembling those pieces in the years since.

It will not be fate—if fate held any sway, the drought would never have evolved into this epic. It will not be karma, which has been so catastrophically overdue it’s been reported to collections. But it will be transcendent, perhaps rivaling that profound symbiosis witnessed between McIlroy and the St. Andrews galleries in 2022, when player and patrons seemed to breathe as one organism. It could indeed be a coronation—what other word captures the moment when one joins golf’s most exclusive fraternity?

So yes, this weekend offers McIlroy yet another shot at what has eluded him for a decade. Another opportunity to be crushed under expectations, another potential moment to stand in his vulnerability, another reminder that hope is disappointment’s cocoon. We recognize this brutal truth, as does McIlroy himself, who acknowledged it earlier this week. That he continues to charge headlong into this emotional buzzsaw—repeatedly exposing himself to dissection after each near-miss—explains why his legion remains unwaveringly loyal.

“It’s just more of a thing where you’re trying to not put 100 percent of yourself out there because of that. It happens in all walks of life,” McIlroy said on Tuesday, about the willingness to put himself in a position of getting hurt. “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.

“But I think once you go through that, once you go through those heartbreaks, as I call them, or disappointments, 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.’ And I think that’s the … 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. I think that’s why I’ve become a little more comfortable in laying everything out there and being somewhat vulnerable at times.”

Thirty-six holes remain at Augusta, and McIlroy—after nearly burying himself—has clawed back into contention. This promises nothing, yet delivers everything his loyal army craves. This is why he plays. This is why we watch. This is why hope refuses to acknowledge what happened before may happen again.

Damn right we are doing this.

Main Image: Stephen Denton