Rory McIlroy isn't in love with golf the way he was. The World No. 1 admitted the week before the Masters that the game doesn't hold the same feelings for him the way they used to.
It's the way things usually are for people. When something you love becomes your living then your feelings towards it change.
McIlroy assures us that his feelings towards golf have no impact on his chances at the Masters:
When I was a kid if I spent a day away from the game I couldn’t wait to get back to the golf course. Now I can’t wait for a week off but then that’s just nothing to do with the game.
I still love the game but then I don’t love it like when I was growing up back home when it was just pure joy to get onto the golf course to play.
Now I can leave the clubs alone for a week and be totally fine and you need that as the golf I play now is just a more intense style of golf.
It's a perfectly understandable viewpoint from McIlroy, if one that is a little disappointing to the romantics of sport.
Golf has certainly been kind to McIlroy, with McIlroy earning a small fortune in tournament earnings and endorsements in his eight years on tour.
To McIlroy's credit, he is aware that the sport has treated him extremely well.
Look I have not worked a day in my life,” he said bluntly. “What I do is not work. This is not a job. It’s an intense environment I play in and I’ve never been used to playing in intense environments so at times it’s just nice to get away from it for a while.
So back in the days when I was a kid I never wanted to get away from it and that’s why I say earlier I don’t love it. I still love the game but it’s just not ‘I can’t wait to get out of the house as quick as I can to the golf course’ feeling.
All eyes are expected to be on McIlroy, who is aiming to be the first golfer since Woods to complete a career Grand Slam. Not since Padraig Harrington in 2009 has a golfer teed up at the Masters with so much attention on them after winning the previous two majors.
While McIlroy is aiming for to get that green jacket for winning the Masters, he hasn't had a fitting for the jacket:
It’s not that I haven’t I dreamed of winning Augusta because I have. It’s just that I haven’t got into the specifics of who would put the jacket on me or whatever.
It remains to be seen what happens next week, but all eyes will be on McIlroy.
[Irish Examiner]
