Masters 2026: How Rory McIlroy learned how to turn regretful misses into major triumphs

AUGUSTA, Ga. — I was slow to warm to Rory McIlroy the player.

He was 20 when I first followed him for a full round, on the Sunday of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine. Mop-headed, skinny fat and loose limbed, he smashed his drive on the 490-yard par-4 first hole with a sublime blend of rhythm, speed and balance. Then, after slightly pushed approach that left him in a very manageable place close to the green, he rushed through four more shots before holing out for a dumb double bogey.

Rory bounced toward the next tee seemingly unbothered, as if certain he would erase such a big mistake with inevitable brilliance. And sure enough, McIlroy quickly whipped off three birdies in a row. He would shoot a two-under 70 to finish an impressive T-3, five strokes behind Y.E. Yang, up to then his best finish in a major.

By the time he’d won the 2011 U.S. Open and 2012 PGA by identical eight shot margins, it seemed a forgone conclusion that golf would soon be entering the Rory Era. But even though he won two more majors in 2014, that didn’t come to pass. And what the subsequent misfortunes over the next decade, like failures to close out the 2022 British Open or the 2024 U.S. Open, would not let me forget was the casualness of that double bogey at Hazeltine.

McIlroy simply had not become a complete enough golfer. He wasn’t Woods, he wasn’t Nicklaus, and he wasn’t Scheffler. He simply made too many mistakes, and without the sophistication in the game’s more subtle arts to survive them when the margins for error were slimmest.

Part of why this state of affairs was frustrating is that McIlroy is a student of the game. In conversation and interviews, he has always been precocious, astute, wise. He had studied the greats, especially Woods, sought Nicklaus’ counsel. In early 2024, he said, “I’d love to be a little more like Scottie Scheffler … just limit the mistakes.” Indeed, after that round at Hazeltine in 2009 he had told me, “It’s just about making the most of playing badly”, a variation on Jack’s emphasis on the importance of being able to “play badly well.”

But it was the seductive ease that McIlroy’s gift for playing unencumbered golf defied following that wisdom. The freewheeling style from those early runaway major victories likely kept him from fully committing to the parts of the game that didn’t seem important in full flight: controlled wedge play, versatile short game, reliable short putting—the mistake minimizers.

Masters 2026

Adam Glanzman

Instead, McIlroy had to learn the hard way that without more proficiency, would-be victories turned into regretful runner-ups. The pain from his 2022 loss at St. Andrews in particular began an increased dedication to the little things that in major championships invariably make a huge difference.

It was a process. Missed short putts might have sunk him at Pinehurst in 2024, but other improvements were noted. The mistakes could still be outsized, as when, while holding the lead in the 2025 Masters, he pitched his short third shot into the creek on the par-5 13th and made a double. After his miraculous eagle on the 15th “erased” that error, he came to the 72nd needing a par to win his first major in 11 years and complete the career Grand Slam he pushed a straightforward pitching wedge into bunker and made bogey.

At that moment, it might have seemed McIlroy was a hopeless case. But it turned out that the McIlroy had also strengthened his competitive psyche, because rather than crumble, he came through in sudden death with a winning birdie.

This year a similar pattern occurred with an even more robust crisis response. McIlroy came into Sunday having lost the six-stroke lead that he’d begun the third round with, and he looked all the more shaky when on the par-3 fourth, he three-putted from five feet for a double bogey to fall two behind Cameron Young.

But McIlroy retained his poise and confidence, and in the bounce-back that ensued, it was key short game shots saved him, like the fraught short chip from the right side of the 17th green that he calmly finessed to save a vital par. Not to ignore the beautifully flighted and bold three-quarter 9-iron on the par-3 12th that was the fruit of the principles he has been applying to his vastly improved wedge game.

In truth, McIlroy didn’t hit the ball particularly well at this Masters. Probably not nearly as well as he struck it at Congressional in 2011. But he gave himself an A+ for his wedges, short game and putting, complete flip of the formula that gave him so much early success, but which proved unsustainable.

And that’s why he’s now, at 36, a better and more complete player. Not in the way that will win majors by eight strokes. In the way that that will win them more often.