Rory McIlroy is grouped with Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele for the first two rounds at The Masters; McIlroy needs win at Augusta National to become first player since Tiger Woods to complete career Grand Slam; watch this week live on Sky Sports Golf
Wednesday 10 April 2024 15:46, UK
Rory McIlroy was left "flattered" by Tiger Woods after the 15-time major champion said it was "only a matter of time" before he completes the career Grand Slam at The Masters.
McIlroy was the last player to arrive at Augusta National on Tuesday ahead of the opening major of the year, where a victory would see him become the first player since Woods to secure the Grand Slam.
Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus are the only other players to have won all four majors in their careers, with McIlroy having 20 major top 10s - including a runner-up finish at Augusta National in 2022 - since his 2014 PGA Championship success.
Woods said pre-tournament last year that the Grand Slam would "definitely happen" in McIlroy's career, only for the Northern Irishman to miss the cut, with the former world No 1 reiterating his belief ahead of this week's contest in Georgia.
"No question, he'll do it at some point," Woods said. "Rory's too talented, too good. He's going to be playing this event for a very long time. He'll get it done. It's just a matter of when.
"I think that Rory will be a great Masters champion one day, and it could be this week. You never know. I just think that just, again, the talent that he has, the way he plays game and the golf course fits his eye, it's just a matter of time."
Reacting to those comments in his press conference, McIlroy replied: "It's flattering. It's nice to hear, in my opinion, the best player ever to play the game say something like that.
"Does that mean that it's going to happen? Obviously not. But he's been around the game long enough to know that I at least have the potential to do it. I know I've got the potential to do it too. It's not as if I haven't been a pretty good player for the last couple of decades. It's nice to hear it when it comes out of his mouth."
McIlroy arrives off the back of a third-place finish at the Valero Texas Open last week, having ended no higher than 19th in his previous five PGA Tour starts after electing for a busier early-season schedule to be ready for The Masters.
"I think it's been beneficial to play a little bit more this year, leading into not just this tournament but the spring and the summer," McIlroy added. "I think I'm a little more in tune with where my game is and where my misses are.
"I think, once you play a lot, you learn just how to manage your game a little bit better instead of if you haven't played that much and you're a little rusty, and I just think that patterns emerge the more that you play. I feel like I've got a big enough data set of rounds to sort of know how to manage what I'm doing right now."
McIlroy has missed the cut in two of the past three editions of The Masters but also enjoyed seven top 10s in his last 10 visits to Augusta National, with the 34-year-old hoping a patient attitude can help him win the event at the 16th time of asking.
"I would say not trying to win it from the first tee shot," McIlroy said when asked about his tactics. "I think that's something that I've tried to learn. It's a 72-hole golf tournament. I've won from 10 strokes back going into the weekend. There's loads of different ways to do it.
"This golf course gets you to chase things a little more than other golf courses, if you make a bogey or if you get yourself out of position, because it always tempts you to do something you think you can do. I'm pretty confident in my golf game.
"I think I can do most things, but sometimes you just have to take the conservative route and be a little more disciplined and patient. With a 72-hole golf tournament, you can be patient, you can be disciplined, and you can stick to your game plan. That's something that I've really tried to learn at this tournament over the years."
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