Rory McIlroy came to Augusta well prepared to claim a second consecutive Masters.  He had prepared carefully and I believe his strategy was to be aggressive and play the power game taking on all the bunker complexes and get those birdie opportunities that
Augusta National offers for length off the tee. He leapt out to a nice lead for the first 36 holes with great execution of this strategy along with a cooperative putter smoothing the day.  The interesting thing about this Masters was that weather was not going to be a factor.  There was no rain to soften the greens and reduce driver yardage.  There was no wind to speak of that would impact club selection.  The temperatures were about as perfect as possible.so the players were not effected by ball flight reduction and other variables.  The players were playing Augusta National plain and simple, and the holes would speak for themselves.

I believe these conditions enabled McIlroy to “go for it” and he went after it.  When he did something wrong such as a miss on 17 in the second round, he simply (incredibly) chipped it in from at least 35 yards for an improbable birdie.  In the third round, a number of players in the pack made the charge as you would expect as the leaderboard began to tighten.    Scheffler started his assault and long hitting Cameron Young emerged.  Justin Rose was on fire fully cognizant of his second place finishes of the past and moved up into contention.  McIlroy’s lead shrank like last week’s dry cleaning.  The key here is that McIlroy wasn’t stumbling, the field was coming after him.  McIlroy clearly expected this charge from the pack and his look of determination at the beginning of the final round seemed to indicate that he was not going to be denied on this day.  He started with a rather timid par on the first hole and then cratered with a horrendous 3 putt on the fourth hole.  I had personally seen McIlroy implode at the 150th Open championship where it simply slipped away to Cameron Smith as he limped into the huge 18th hole gallery at St. Andrews with a disturbing crestfallen loss.    Was the double bogey the beginning of another blown major championship?   McIlroy’s demeanor indicated to me that this double bogey was an annoyance, and he was determined to press on and win this thing.  Justin Rose momentarily took over the tournament lead, but for some reason after making a great par on number 10, it seemed like trouble was brewing. A very tentative iron on the dangerous 11th led to a costly bogey.  As has happened in many other Masters, the Golden Bell 12th hole would claim and deprive another competitor of the title as Rose airmailed the green and improbably chili-dipped his approach for the costly bogey that would send him out of the lead for good.  McIlroy would birdie 12 and 13 with precision iron shots and clutch putts while Cameron Young and Scheffler just couldn’t execute makable putts.  McIlroy mastered the 15th hole with 3 birdies out of the 4 rounds–Scheffler was even on 15 and Young was 1 under.  McIlroy won this tournament with grit and determination with a passion that would not be denied.

Augusta National is one of the few courses on tour that can generate this type of competition with the ebb and flow of a NBA game including squandering a 6 shot lead in the third round. Virtually every hole at Augusta National is capable of creating significant havoc in the tournament.  This Masters was played in conditions that haven’t been available for many years–without cold, rain and wind–set up to play with ultra fast greens and uniformity for all the competition to play on an equal footing. There were a few 9’s on the par 15th as players miscalculated or mishit their approaches.  Robert McIntyre was one of those 15th hole victims and he displayed some foul behavior that fortunately was overlooked by the officials.    Some players  flew the green on 15 and found getting back to the green as treacherous as crossing the pond in the first place.  Golden Bell claimed another victim-Justin Rose- without putting a ball in the water.

A great win and well-deserved victory for McIlroy.

I am a bit mystified and sad by the amount of counterfeit Masters merchandise being hawked all over the internet.  You can only get the real stuff at the tournament.  It’s a statement that you have actually physically been there.  Now you can buy all sorts of junk with Masters logo-not authentic–I wonder if the club intends to pursue infringement as this stuff cheapens the brand.  Augusta National has never licensed the Masters logo, so it will be interesting to see prospectively if these bootleg retailers continue to get away with what they are doing.  The internet continues to publish some ridiculous statements attributed to Jack Nicklaus, Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young and even McIIroy spouting a bunch of nonsense that these people would never say.  In our modern society, one has to decide what is fact or fiction on many of these postings to generate interest–shameful to say the least.