The biggest impediment to Rory McIlroy winning a green jacket on that Masters Sunday last April?
The final pairing with Bryson DeChambeau.
“I felt like that was going to be the toughest thing I would have to deal with that day was Bryson himself,” McIlroy said Tuesday on a surprise appearance on the Shotgun Start podcast, “and just the way we’re polar opposites with how we approach the game. I felt like he was going to have a portion of the crowd, and I was going to have a portion of the crowd, and just having to deal with that a little bit.”
McIlroy, during the 40-minute interview, recalled a conversation with his sports psychologist, Dr. Bob Rotella, near Augusta National’s caddie area before McIlroy warmed up for the final round.
“How you feeling today?” Rotella asked his client.
To which McIlroy responded, “I’m feeling good. I’m feeling good about my stuff. … The one thing that I’m uneasy about is just the pairing.”
Rotella’s response, according to McIlroy: “Well, just make him invisible.”
“And I said,” McIlroy added. “’Well, what do you mean?’ And he goes, ‘Just don’t engage, don’t look at him, just get lost in your own little world. You’ve got Harry beside you, like have him be your companion and just get lost in that world.’ And that’s what I tried to do.”
DeChambeau, who led by a shot through two holes before shooting 75 and tying for fifth, commented after the round that there was only silence between he and McIlroy.
“Didn’t talk to me once all day,” DeChambeau told reporters as McIlroy was preparing for a playoff with Justin Rose. “He was just like, just being focused, I guess. It’s not me, though.”
“I felt like that was the biggest impediment between me and winning the Masters that day,” McIlroy continued, “and then once it was apparent that that wasn’t going to be the biggest impediment, then I made myself the biggest impediment.”
Added McIlroy: “There’s not one thing about that day that I would want back.”
McIlroy addressed several topics with hosts Brendan Porath, Andy Johnson, Kevin Van Valkenburg and producer P.J. Clark (the guys also did a nearly four-hour pod reviewing McIlroy’s Masters win), including a couple items he’s received since capturing his first green jacket and completing the career grand slam.
One was a handwritten note that Jack Nicklaus placed in his new Champion’s Room locker. McIlroy flew straight from the Australia Open last week to spend a couple days at Augusta National.
The other was an early Christmas gift from McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond: An Augusta National scorecard signed by the other five members of the career-slam club.
“He brought me this with a Sharpie and said, ‘Do you want to sign it?’” McIlroy said. “And I said, ‘Absolutely not. I just hope I don’t have to get Scottie to sign it next year.’”