Brandel Chamblee had it right when he sat down with Rich Lerner and Paul McGinley for a chat after round three at the Masters. “The greatest rollercoaster in the world is not at any theme park,” he said, “it is where Rory McIlroy is playing golf. If you could buy a ticket to The Rory Ride, we’d have a line from here to California.”
You know the way that every so often there’s a discussion about who is the greatest Irish sportsperson of all time? Well, whatever your preference, there is surely no longer any debate about who has most put the nation through the wringer? Like their tummies were taking The Rory Ride.
It had all, of course, been nigh on perfect in those first two rounds, like having cracked the Masters code last year, Augusta National had become a bit of a breeze. “I think he’s found a spiritual home here,” McGinley said after McIlroy took that six-shot lead, by then Sky fretting over a Tiger-like procession towards the title that would render Super Sunday a bit flattish.
And those displays on Thursday and Friday had dispelled any doubts about McIlroy’s hunger levels, which had been a theme in much of Sky’s pre-tournament natter.
“It’s hard to get out of bed wearing silk pyjamas,” McGinley – who’ll be wearing a Stetson soon enough to match that accent – had said, but he still had a notion McIlroy might not be content with a single green jacket. And indeed, he got out of bed, made it to Georgia, and played silkily enough to make mince meat of the field.
But.
And that, need it be said, is what makes McIlroy the mother of all watches: there’s always a but.
“Remember a year ago when we said, ‘Rory, you gotta be kidding me, I can’t do this any more’? Here we are again,” said Rich after that Rory Ride of a third round, during which Butch Harmon had oscillated between “ATTA BOY, RORY!” to “OH. MY. GOD. RORY.” Another day when you watch your telly from behind a cushion.
“There was a sense this week that Rory was going to chloroform the entire field,” said Brandel, “but …”. Not unreasonably, though, he pointed out that if you can still share the lead going in to the final round of the Masters, having played like a drain for much of your third round, all is not too bad.
On top of that, he reckoned that having been through the mill at Augusta before, lessons would have been learned. “The way you look at your past can either fertilise or demoralise your future,” he said, a declaration that had Rich swooning. Paul even agreed with Brandel, which is a rare enough occurrence.
Come Sunday morning, Nick Dougherty assembled his crew to discuss where it had all gone wrong for McIlroy the previous day. “His back nine was a train wreck,” said Butch. He, Laura Davies and Nick “did I mention I won three Masters?” Faldo put it down to a spin-axis issue with his iron shots. In other words, they were speaking Swahili.
In case you weren’t aware that Nick Faldo has a green jacket. Photograph: David Cannon/Getty Images
Laura humbly suggested Rory should have tried a different clubby thing when his irony swings were going haywire, but she humbly conceded she didn’t feel comfortable dishing out advice to a grand slam winner. Nick dished out advice too, but left out the humble bit.
At this point, Sky brought Gareth Southgate on to their panel to get advice on how to recover from a severe sporting off-day so that you could rise again and lift the ultimate prize. You’d guess the comments on X/Twitter were along the lines of “HOW THE EFFIN’ HELL WOULD HE KNOW?”, but if you were wise, you didn’t check.
Gareth, incidentally, was rooting for Justin Rose, who, he said, was kind of the England football version of golf: so close, so far away.
Nick picked up on that theme when he turned to Gareth. “Can I make a suggestion? You get your players to think like golfers – so they kick it to the middle, then up there and then in the back of the net as quick as possible rather than all this kicking about in the middle of the field.”
Two conclusions. 1) Nick thinks Gareth is still the England gaffer. 2) If England bomb at the World Cup, the FA will appoint him as Thomas Tuchel’s successor. At which point he might well fertilise their future.
