Sir Nick Faldo tells Rory McIlroy how to get over Masters hurdle and win Green Jacket eight years after last major
SIR NICK FALDO knows more about the challenges of Augusta than most having won The Masters on three occasions.
He is also one of only three men — with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — to have successfully defended the Green Jacket.
The six-time Major winner tells SunSport’s MARTIN LIPTON why Rory McIlroy is running out of time to deliver his first Augusta win to complete the Grand Slam — and why he is so desperate to see if Woods makes an astonishing return.
SIR NICK ON RORY
It’s fair to say everyone assumed Rory would win a Masters at some point, long before now.
But it hasn’t quite happened and time soon goes by.
It’s nearly eight years since his last Major and that means there’s a lot of negative scar tissue to look through when you tee it up.
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So you’ve got to believe in yourself. Rory has to find that comfort zone where he gets in his own world.
What I would say is that Rory is swinging beautifully with the driver. It looks fabulous. He just has to keep his motivation up there.
Any time he hits a couple too many poor short irons and doesn’t take the opportunities he’s created, you see how it affects him because he’s such an emotional guy.
When he’s playing well you can physically see the spring in his step.
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I want to see that and also that he doesn’t knock himself out or can deal with it if things go wrong and get himself back up again. That’s the important thing.
It’s all about that eight or nine iron into the green at The Masters. Those short irons have got to be perfect. Then you have to steer it a little left or right of the flag to keep it safe.
But we are likely to have rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, so the course will probably be a little more playable for the first two days.
Someone, maybe Rory, might go screaming off before things dry up.
There will be so much attention on other players, people like Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa, let alone Woods if he plays.
That could help Rory. He has a good chance to just sneak in and do his thing in practice, come in under the radar, do his obligations, say he’s fine and ready and keep it to that.
SIR NICK ON TIGER
The thought of Tiger playing this week is astonishing.
How can he go from last February with a 50-50 chance of losing his right leg to potentially teeing it up?
He went in for a practise round last week for one day but we still don’t know what that means.
Tiger was testing the leg out as it’s a really tough walk, one of the toughest in golf. You walk downhill so much you come off with shin splints that week, even the fit golfers.
It would be phenomenal to come back from such a serious injury.
We were told he might lose the foot, then never walk again, to need a cane to walk and not playing golf again, to possibly this.
The man is one of the really few people on planet Earth who can use that amount of sheer determination to fuel their goal.
He is a phenomenal person with such ridiculous determination. It is unbelievable.
The mental and physical pain barrier he’s had to bring himself through is something most of us couldn’t comprehend, so it’s another phenomenal story in his career.
SIR NICK’S MASTERS MEMORIES
I can honestly say, when I go through airports — and I fly twice a week — nearly every single week someone will come up to me and say they watched it, me, Greg Norman, that Masters in 1996.
They get all the facts right, too, which is great.
A lot of them say that was their inspiration, “I started golf because I watched that comeback” and that’s pretty good. It was a great day for me.
In 1971 I watched The Masters for the first time and I was inspired to play the game.
By 1989 I was playing really well each week but screwing up a lot of tournaments.
I was playing great for 27 holes, leading The Masters, and then the next 27 I shot nine over, which was unbelievable.
I hold that record — I shot 77 and then 65 — of the highest third round shot by a winner, which is quite cool.
The Sunday was an amazing day. It was wet and back then the golf course was playing long. My putting was great and I holed a lot of putts.
I still remember that putt to win the play-off against Scott Hoch, can still feel that putt across the green to win it, so that was special.
Then I went back the next year to defend it, which was great. And in 1996, I was six back but playing with Greg.
I just used the motivation that The Masters is the scariest tournament we play, because every year it’s the same location, the only Major that does that, so we get all of that history.
That’s what ramps up the whole pressure on the back nine on the Sunday. It’s a knife-edge of failure and success.
I knew that if I got within three, anything could happen. That was my first goal and I managed it after nine holes.
Then Greg made a mess of ten, 11 and 12 and suddenly I walked to 13 and thought “I’m up by two, s**t — now it’s mine to lose!”
It was back in the day when I could really grind things out.
I was still able to birdie 13 and 15, which you’re meant to do and I even birdied the last, which was just freaky. I’m very proud to have three of them because I’m in a very cool club.
SIR NICK ON THE BRITS AND EUROPEANS
Tyrrell Hatton has actually played very well. He’s a very good ball striker and doing a lot of good things.
But we all know he can lose his head. If he can make sure that losing his head is just for entertainment and doesn’t affect the next shot, then he would be, with his ball striking, keeping himself around.
I really like Shane Lowry in the Majors. He’s a good, gutsy player. He did well in the PGA at Valhalla last year. He’s sneaky and plays nicely.
Of the other Europeans, Victor Hovland and Jon Rahm are looking great and pounding away.
Tommy Fleetwood is in there, too, but he hasn’t quite put himself under that pressure at the weekend when you find out what you feel like when you are huffing and puffing.
SIR NICK’S TOUGHEST HOLE
All of them are tough but probably the 12th, that par three over Rae’s Creek, because it never gets any easier.
You get the swirling wind, which means you can think you’ve hit it absolutely right but it still ends up short or long — and you don’t want either of those.
It’s a hole where even the caddies pray when the ball is in the air, let alone the player. You are never 100 per cent sure, even if you’ve hit it the best you can. You just want to get it on the green.
SIR NICK ON WHY AUGUSTA IS SPECIAL
You are really in awe of the place when you go for the first time.
It is amazing. You drive along Magnolia Lane and past the little clubhouse.
Even in 1979, when I went for the first time, you look at the grass and think “wow!”
It’s 150 acres and the grass is exactly the same.
Now it’s 40-odd years on and the condition of the course is always absolute perfection. It’s even perfection inside the fence line.
You go to the outskirts of the course and there are the little cottages with nothing, not even a wire, out of place.
It is amazing. Such a special atmosphere. Nine times out of ten you play under that gorgeous blue sky. It’s just an incredible place.
You won’t believe what perfection is until you’ve been to Augusta. You play and you’re looking at the course but also the grass, the sand… it’s the whole atmosphere.
People turn up and the first thing they think is that they can’t believe the hill up on the tee. It is really special.
For the players, it’s fantastic because you’re the only two inside the ropes, just you and your caddy. There’s no press or photographers.
Everybody knows their place and it’s beautiful there.
SIR NICK ON WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN
Your iron shots have to be shaped exactly as you intend.
If you’re trying to hit a fade into the green, you HAVE to hit a fade. If it’s a minimal fade and it’s close, then you’re safe, that’s great.
But you can’t try to hit a fade but get it wrong and hit a draw. Because it will land in completely the wrong place and release to an even worse place, over the green or in the water or all sorts of things.
So it’s about making sure the ball is safe, then it’s about distance control.
You have to hit it on the right number and the ball stays where you intend it to.
It doesn’t need fancy, flashy stuff, but good solid shots in the right places.
And then you’ve got to have a great touch because the greens are incredible.
You cannot fear the greens. If you’re fearing the greens, you’ve got no chance.
You have to accept you’re going to be four or six feet past, as long as it’s an easy read coming back, and not wind yourself up.
If the players have a wooden floor at home, they should practise on that. I’d practise in the kitchen, on the marble.
But you have to get so internal that when you get over the ball it’s just you, feeling your heartbeat and then feel the cover off the ball.
It’s amazing when you get that quiet. You can’t be edgy, you want to get in a Zen mode, really quiet, with the stroke running on oil.
SIR NICK’S 2022 MASTERS TIPS
Scheffler is playing so well and has such a good short game and is a great putter.
He plays the draw all the time but we have seen him still block a few right under pressure. This is another new hurdle for him but if he can get himself in the deep end by Sunday, we’ll see what happens.
Sam Burns is going great, Will Zalatoris was going well last week.
Morikawa has gone a little quiet and Johnson has come back into form.
But I’d also look at 23-year-old Joaquin Niemann and Brooks Koepka, who is showing good signs.
Follow Sir Nick on Instagram @faldo006.