On the eve of his return to Augusta National, Rory McIlroy is a very different player – and man – than the one who lost the green jacket on the 10th hole in last year’s final round.
The string of changes in his life since that Sunday seem to more than justify the means.
'(They’ve) given me a lot more peace of mind, a lot more contentment, and that’s enabled me to play some great golf along the way,’ McIlroy said in an interview with ‘Golf Magazine.’
His girlfriend of eight months, superstar tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, has made him “the happiest I’ve ever been off the golf course.”
He changed representation, rented a house in Florida and is again a PGA Tour member – all related decisions.
‘I felt like the path I was going down wasn’t the path I wanted to go down,” McIlroy said, admitting former agent Chubby Chandler influenced his thinking and scheduling in the United States.
‘I think just spending a little bit of time around Chubby and Lee and hearing their view of the PGA Tour – obviously they’re very pro-European Tour, while I’ve always been one who wanted to play over here and wants to play on the PGA Tour. Maybe that was one of the decisions I look back on and regret a little bit.’
If there’s any hard feelings between the two, you wouldn’t know it listening to Chandler.
‘We had four-and-a-half years of helping to nurture an unbelievable talent. And, with our without ISM, Rory will become a great player. He will go on to win 10 majors, maybe more,’ Chandler said this week, according to the U.K.-based “Daily Mail.”
To win a second major, McIlroy says he has to continue to trust his instinct, and stay true to himself under immense pressure.
‘All I was trying to do (at Augusta) was just keep my nose in front. It was probably a bad mental strategy that I had throughout the day,’ he said.
Conservative, McIlroy is not. It’s in his smile, his walk and his composure. It was out in full force at Congressional last June and, if he is in position to win next Sunday, it will be at Augusta National as well.