Out there, among the azaleas and the tranquillity of the most manicured hills in sport, a tangled and glorious mess of tales will begin to unfold.
A Tiger who can barely stand, the Northern Irishman who made a stand, the rebels of LIV who you may or may not be able to stand —the coming days at Augusta promise to be quite outstanding indeed.
It is the first major of the season and the most loaded for context in some time. It has been near enough impossible to separate golf from its politics in the past year and, by a logical continuation of the thought, it is impossible to separate Rory McIlroy from the many faces of his situation. He is also the most natural place for us to start.
On the sporting front, McIlroy’s is a complicated business with a simple solution — win the Masters and join the greats. Win the Masters and become only the sixth man to have held all four of the big ones. Win the Masters and stop the taunts of a clock that somehow has ticked for almost nine years since he last took a major.
Simple enough and devilishly complicated for many reasons, two of whom are called Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm, and a third is called Rory McIlroy.
Rory McIlroy with his wife, Erica Stoll, and daughter Poppy at Augusta on Wednesday
The Northern Irishman is bidding to become only the sixth player to win all four majors
His form since sneaking through the back door to second here last year has been exceptional, a blitz of four wins worldwide and achieved with the zeal of a crusader. By the close of 2022, he was back on top of the global rankings and those for both the PGA and European circuits — his dance of giants in that time with Scheffler and Rahm has been truly compelling.
But can McIlroy withstand the pressure of his circumstances, which include an opening-round tee-time in the worst of storms forecast for the afternoon? Can he do so on a course as haunting and challenging as Augusta, where this 33-year-old is forever reminded of that 2011 implosion, more than a third of his lifetime ago?
We know he has the nous for this quirky stretch of land because he has been here 12 times, four of which ended in the top five. And we know he can do the physical stuff, because he has one of the greatest swings and repertoires in golf, and crucially, within that, he once again has a driver and putter he can trust after missing the cut at the Players Championship. That reeked of a mercurial talent coming off the boil at precisely the wrong time, but he has since looked extremely strong at the WGC Match Play, and if rumours are true, he also required only 19 putts during a practise round here a few weeks back. In short, he has answers to all of the challenges of a course that meets his eye and shot shape.
THREE TO BACK
THE FAVOURITE
Rory McIlroy (6-1). His game is perfect for this course and he was runner-up last year. He has corrected problems with his driver that saw him miss the cut at the Players Championship and has also replaced a problematic putter.
THE DECENT EACH-WAY BET
Brooks Koepka (25-1). A four-time major winner with a serious chance to claim his first green jacket. Was drifting to irrelevance but won on the LIV circuit last weekend and is notoriously hard to beat when confident.
THE LONG SHOT
Corey Conners (40-1). The Canadian has finished in the top 10 three years in a row.
But the doubts, such as they are, concern a temperament that seems to have greater fluctuations than those of Rahm and Scheffler. His critics will point to a habit of not bringing his best on a Sunday. There is truth in that, or rather there is some, and it is telling that McIlroy himself has spoken at length about the need for a robust mind this week.
As he put it, after detailing his plans to get a pep talk from the famed psychologist Bob Rotella: ‘If I go out and play the way that I know that I can, get myself in with a chance to win, those last couple of hours on Sunday is about who can hold it together the best.’
His great sparring partner, Greg Norman, is responsible for the most notorious Augusta collapse of all and so is living proof of the point. Norman is also a conduit to the other questions around McIlroy, who has thrived during the LIV debacle but has spent an extreme amount of energy fighting that cause and orchestrating the PGA Tour’s response.
McIlroy himself has recently doubted the wisdom of his decisions to invest so much in the skirmishes, and it is notable he has kept his rhetoric to a minimum this week. Many in the traditional camps of a divided sport will hope he thrives in the relative silence.
Norman has said the LIV cohort here — 18 of them — will storm the green if one of their own is victorious. The best of the rebel prospects has typically been viewed as Cameron Smith, who did well here before the storms of the past year, but the Australian is out of form and low on practice.
The battles with Scottie Scheffler (above) and Jon Rahm have been truly compelling
Open champion Cameron Smith features among the 18 LIV revels taking part this week
Brooks Koepka, by comparison, is a tantalising bet, given he thought he was washed up when he left for LIV. But after emerging victorious on their circuit last weekend the four-time major winner arrived here with a swagger we haven’t seen since his time as a ferociously effective big-game hunter.
He is driven by the idea of proving he can still smash anyone on his day. If he or one of his colleagues pulls it off, and here of all places, it might just trigger golf’s greatest ruckus since Tiger Woods rolled into the hydrant.
Which brings us to arguably the greatest of all. Woods spoke this week of his mangled right leg and the sheer relief that he still has the limb at all, but on he goes.
For the first time, he didn’t say he thought he could win, and in associated comments he had little idea if he had many rounds left of this place. As ever, he will be intriguing viewing. But in this Masters, unlike many others across three decades, that doesn’t make him stand out.
