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It’s not that Rory McIlroy hasn’t watched some of the highlights of his final round and emotional reaction to winning the Masters in April. It’s just not something he wants running in a loop in his head.
The analogy could be getting front-row seats to see your all-time favourite performer and then holding up your phone and staring at the tiny screen the entire time. McIlroy doesn’t want to tarnish the experience by reducing it to whatever size TV he has. Finally winning the green jacket to complete the career Grand Slam, it’s so much bigger than that.
“I’ve tried not to watch it a lot because I want to remember the feelings,” McIlroy said on Wednesday morning on the eve of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. “… I’ve talked about this before, but I think when I rewatch a lot of things back, I then just remember of the visuals of the TV rather than what I was feeling and what I was seeing through my own eyes, so I haven’t tried to watch it back too much.”
McIlroy did make this admission: “But anytime I have [watched it], I well up. I still feel like I want to cry.”
Rory McIlroy – JD Cuban
McIlroy caused grown men, women and little children to cry and cheer that Sunday, when his tortured, decade-long quest to complete the career slam was satiated in a wild final round at Augusta National that ended with a birdie at the 18th on the first hole of a playoff with Justin Rose. McIlroy grabbed his head, fell to his knees and was sobbing so hard he was shaking.
“Pure relief” was how the Ulsterman described in the immediate aftermath what he was feeling, and on Wednesday McIlroy said of his reaction, “It was an involuntary … I’ve never felt a release like that before, and I might never feel a release like that again. That could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and it was a very cool moment.”
It was also a poignant moment on Wednesday for McIlroy to acknowledge that he may have already accomplished the greatest golf experience of his life. At 36, the 29-time PGA Tour winner would figure to be in his playing prime, and plenty of prognosticators are saying that with a green jacket secured and the enormous pressure relieved, McIlroy is primed to pile on more majors to his current total of five. The talk of that is thick this week, considering McIlroy has already won four PGA Tour events at Quail Hollow.
But it could go the other way, too: that the Masters triumph was such a physical and emotional peak, McIlroy will take a hard tumble from the mountain. As introspective as McIlroy is in life, it’s no surprise that he’s thought about that.
“Look, everyone needs to have goals and dreams, and I’ve been able to do something that I dreamed of for a long time,” he said. “I’m still going to set myself goals. I’m still going to try to achieve certain things. But I sit here knowing that that very well could be the highlight of my career.
“That’s a very cool thing. I want to still create a lot of other highlights and high points, but I’m not sure if any other win will live up to what happened a few weeks ago.”
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Main Image: Scott Taetsch/PGA of America
