DUBLIN, Ohio – Two years ago in April, the weekend before Rory McIlroy won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam, McIlroy had lunch with Jack Nicklaus and the six-time Green-Jacket winner asked McIlroy how he intended to play Augusta National.
“You want all of it?” McIlroy asked.
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“Yeah, give it to me shot for shot,” Nicklaus answered.
“And so Rory went through it shot for shot,” Nicklaus recalled on Tuesday during a press conference ahead of The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club, the club he founded in his hometown. “And he said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t change a thing. I think it’s exactly the way you should play it.’ He varied from it one time. He varied from it on the third hole. He said if the pin was left, he was not going to drive it, but he would drive it every other time. Well, he drove it on Sunday on that and put it right at the base of the hill and made birdie. But he gave himself a chance to make more than that. But that birdie probably won the tournament for him that first year.”
This year, McIlroy joined Nicklaus in another exclusive club, becoming just the fourth player to repeat at the Masters. Once again, some advice from the Golden Bear came in handy after they bumped into each other on the practice tee on Thursday morning just before Nicklaus hit the ceremonial opening tee shot as one of the three honorary starters to kick off the 90th Masters.
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“I put my hands on his shoulders, and I said to him, ‘No effing double bogeys,’” Nicklaus recalled. “He did end up making a couple the last couple rounds, but he didn’t make any the first two rounds. So I was very happy for Rory. I was delighted for him. I’ve been a big Rory fan. Now he’s only got one thing left on his resume that he really needs to have and that’s to win here. So you tell him that he’s got to do that.”
Nicklaus’s stiff examination at Muirfield Village has been McIlroy’s kryptonite. This week marks his 14th appearance here and his best finish is a T-4 in 2016, one of five top-10 finishes. But his 13 previous starts is the most starts at an event without a win in his PGA Tour career. Why hasn’t McIlroy won at Jack’s Place? Even Nicklaus is befuddled.
“Maybe because he hasn’t asked me. I don’t know,” he said with a laugh. “I think that this golf course is a golf course that really requires patience… I didn’t design it for big hitters, didn’t design it for short hitters, didn’t design it for the middle. I tried to design it so we could take care of everybody and try to give a fair shake to every kind of player. And when you get that, you can’t just stand up and just whack away at it on every hole. I tried that in my early years. I didn’t do very well.”
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McIlroy’s failure to win the Memorial isn’t for a lack of birdies or good driving of the ball.
“For being such a long golf course I feel like it takes driver out of my hand a lot, which, you know, I pride myself on that being one of my biggest weapons,” McIlroy said. “The fairways pinch in right around the spots where I would be finishing driver. So, it’s frustrated me in a way that I feel like my biggest weapon is in some way neutralized here.”
Nevertheless, in the Shotlink Era, McIlroy has averaged gaining +0.70 strokes off the tee, the third highest average at the Memorial Tournament since 2003 (minimum 20 rounds played), and he’s averaged 4.27 birdies per round, the fifth highest of any player at this event since 2003. Last year, McIlroy skipped The Memorial, but he’s back this week to try to check one of the few remaining boxes on his to-do list before his career is done.
“I haven’t quite figured it out yet. It’s frustrated me over my career,” McIlroy said. “I would say here and Tiger’s event at Riviera, they’re the two that I would love to win. I’ve been lucky enough to win at Bay Hill, but not while Arnold was alive. So I always thought it would be cool to win here and take that little walk up the hill off the 18th green and shake Jack’s hand.”
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Nicklaus created the Memorial in the mold of the Masters so perhaps all McIlroy needs to do is follow Jack’s advice from earlier this year – play with a little more discipline and avoid the double bogeys.
“Hopefully this is the week that I put it all together,” McIlroy said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Rory McIlroy seeks elusive win at ‘Jack’s Place’ at the Memorial
