McIlroy: Still want to win Masters, but no longer 'need' to

AUSTIN, Texas – After his victory at The Players, Rory McIlroy spent a good chunk of time explaining how he’s learned to separate himself from his work.

Who he is as a golfer, he says, does not represent who he is as a person.

That philosophy extends to his pursuit of the career Grand Slam and that elusive green jacket. McIlroy is now just two weeks away from 11^th Masters and his fifth attempt to close out the Slam.

But this time will be different. This time, there isn’t a “need.”

“I think there's a difference between a personal desire and a need. And I think I've separated those two,” he said. “I would have said a couple of years ago, ‘I need to win a Masters. I need a green jacket.’ Where now it's, I want to. I want to win it. And I'd love to win it. But if I don't I'm okay. And I think that is the difference.”

That difference is rooted in his new mindset, but it’s also rooted in failure. Strictly in terms of wins and losses, golf is a story of near-constant failure with only the occasional victory mixed in. That’s something McIlroy, as competitive as he is, has had to learn to accept. Success came early for the Ulsterman, who ripped off four majors in four years and has now gone four years without adding No. 5.

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Process, patience and poise are his three new buzz words. He’s now so focused on the daily grind that he’s treating his results like an afterthought, or even a happy accident. On Tuesday, he went so far as to downplay his performance at The Players. He made a point to mention those four days at Sawgrass didn’t even amount to his best week this year, since he was actually better in the strokes-gained category in Mexico.

That might sound a little extreme, but it’s a mindset that is clearly working for McIlroy, who hasn’t finished worse than T-6 in a PGA Tour start in 2019.

And so, if he ever does put on that green jacket, he thinks it will be thanks to his process, his patience, his poise and all of his preceding failure.

“Believe me, I am motivated to make the most of what I have and to put my name among some of the greats of our game,” he said. “But at the same time knowing that in golf you fail – my win percentage since I turned pro is probably around 10 percent, which is pretty good for golf. So knowing nine times out of ten you're going to fail, you know, that is freeing as well. That's freedom. I'm going to try my ass off here, and I'm probably not going to win.

“I've had ten years of learning at Augusta, some tough times. And all of those, if one day I'm able to get that green jacket at the end of 72 holes, all of those experiences will have played a part in helping me do that.

“So have I a desire to do it? Yes. Do I have a need to do it? No.”

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