Rory McIlroy has tried virtually everything in his power to win The Masters and complete the career Grand Slam, with his best result at the tournament coming in 2022, when he finished runner-up.
This year, McIlroy is reportedly set to arrive at Augusta National late in the week and plans to skip the traditional Par 3 Contest. The Northern Irishman also paid a visit to legendary coach Butch Harmon as he looks to fine-tune his swing before the year’s first Major.
Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler witnessed first-hand Harmon’s capabilities having coached his former clients Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood, and believes the timely link-up could give McIlroy his best chance yet of cracking Augusta and ending his ten-year Major drought.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Rory makes a big run at it next week,” Chandler, who also represented McIlroy when he first turned professional, told Boyle Sports.
“His game will go back to how he used to play, he’ll have Butch’s words of encouragement in his mind and he’ll have been told how good he is for three days. Butch caresses their ego, takes them back to where they were, tells them how good they are, pats them on the a**e and sends them out and says ‘nobody is going to beat you next week’.
“If somebody goes to Butch you can’t see the difference. What Butch does is take the naturalness back and then tells you how good you are for three days, then off you go and you feel great. It used to be fantastic seeing him work with people.”
Rory McIlroy missed the cut at last year’s Masters
(Image credit: Getty Images)
McIlroy, who missed the cut at last year’s Masters, expanded on his work with Harmon at this week’s Valero Texas Open and said the visit to Las Vegas was “really worthwhile”.
“The one thing with Butch is you go spend time with him and you’re always going to feel better about yourself at the end of it whether you’re hitting it better or not,” he added. “He’s sort of half golf coach, half psychologist in a way.
“It’s fun to go out there; I went and spent probably four hours with him in Vegas. He said a couple of things to me that resonated. It’s the same stuff that I’ve been trying to do with my coach Michael, but he sort of just said it in a different way that maybe hit home with me a little bit more.”
Chandler was speaking to…
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