Rory McIlroy has revealed the extra lengths he is going to in order to finally win the Masters.
The Northern Irish golfer has enjoyed huge success during his career, winning three of golf’s major titles and four overall – albeit his last one came over a decade ago at the 2014 PGA Championships.
But there is one tournament that still alludes the 35-year-old and that is the Masters, having suffered a series of heartbreaking near misses throughout his career.
Ahead of the major season, McIlroy will compete at the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park for the first time since 2014 as he looks to build on a strong start to the year.
“I just want to get a card in my hand and shoot scores. Hopefully get myself in contention and try to win another golf tournament,” McIlroy told reporters ahead of the event.
“It’s not as if I’m playing here this week and thinking about two weeks’ time [The Masters]. I’m here, I’m in the present and I’m trying to do my best this week to win this golf tournament.
“I’m obviously playing well and I want to keep playing well. I think every round you play, where you see good things, you’re sort of filling up that confidence bucket a little bit.
“It was great to get a win a couple weeks ago but I still feel I could have played a lot better. I tried to poke holes in a lot of my game last week and think about things I could do better. There were definitely things that I could work on or do better.
“It’s a good opportunity to go out and see if some of the work I did at home, and I’m continuing to do here, hopefully it’s all going in the right direction.”
Proud to join such elite company with two @THEPLAYERS wins. It’s one of the greatest championships we play. This game has a way of testing you, but there’s no better feeling than getting it done on a stage like this. pic.twitter.com/EQsC1VL1FW
— Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) March 17, 2025
McIlroy trying to ‘poke holes’ in game
McIlroy is among the favourites to win the Masters, with the former world No1 taking a scouting trip to Augusta last week to bolster his hopes of finally completing the Grand Slam.
“I use those trips just to refamiliarise myself with the place, clubs off tees, looking to see if they changed any greens,” McIlroy explained. “There are four greens that are new this year, that they’ve redone.
“You have a look at those and see if there’s any new hole positions they give you, stuff like that. Apart from that, honestly for me, it’s nice to play a practice round without people around and it sort of takes the pressure off the start of the week for me.
“There’s a lot of obligations, there’s big commitments – whether it be from media or the par-three tournament on Wednesday, so I just like to get up there and feel like I’m not rushed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday the week of the tournament.”
