McIlroy targets back-to-back Masters wins after 2025 triumph gives him 'freeing feeling'
Rory McIlroy would love to don the green jacket again this year.
Rory McIlroy will glide down Magnolia Lane next month believing it will be easier for him to become a multiple Masters champion after completing the career Grand Slam last year.
In a teleconference ahead of his title defence in three weeks, the Holywood star (35) unveiled the menu he will serve for the Masters Club Dinner and his hopes of hosting for a second time next year as a two-time winner.
“Obviously, really excited to get to the week of the tournament and defend,” said the world number two, who is pleased with his recovery from a recent back injury.
“I know defending the Masters Tournament is a pretty rare feat, and it's something that I would love to do.”
Only Jack Nicklaus (1966), Nick Faldo (1990) and Tiger Woods (2002) have won back-to-back Masters titles, but while he hasn’t sought advice on what it takes to win multiple green jackets, he hopes it will be easier to get his second.
“I’ve done it once, and it's not as if I have to win it again to win the Grand Slam,” said the Co Down man, whose heart-stopping play-off win over Justin Rose last year allowed him to become just the sixth man to win all four Majors.
"I think it was sort of two things in one. Obviously, I wanted to win the Masters so badly, but at the same time, knowing what the Masters would then give me and the people that it would put me alongside.
“But I think that now that I’ve won it once, I feel like that'll make it a bit easier for me to win again.”
He added: “It’s been normal for me to go into my closet and see the green jacket hanging there. I only have five more weeks with it, unfortunately. But hopefully it’s not the last time I get to bring off property.”
Rather than carrying a burden, McIlroy believes he will arrive with a sense of freedom.
“Having a parking space in the Champions’ car park to using the Champions’ locker room to hosting the dinner on the Tuesday night — the thing is, I know I get to go back to the Masters tournament for the rest of my life,” he said. “And that's quite a freeing feeling.”
He admitted that his final round, where he mixed exhilarating birdies with clumsy mistakes before finally beating Justin Rose at the first extra hole, was the most stressful of his career.
“I don't think there was any round of golf that I've played before that can compare to the feelings and the emotions I went through that Sunday.”
He revealed that the Masters forced him to improve his short game and putting, having initially struggled to understand why Phil Mickelson enjoyed playing the course so aggressively.
“I remember thinking, what does he mean?” McIlroy said of a practice round they played some 15 years ago. “It's like, I feel the opposite. I feel like I can't be aggressive here, because there's so many bad places to miss.
"But I think Phil had so much and still has probably so much faith in his short game that if he does miss an approach shot by being aggressive, he still feels like he can get that ball up and down.
“And I think I would say by becoming a better putter and by maybe working on my short game a little bit and becoming better around the greens, that probably allowed me to become more aggressive with my approach play at Augusta.
“I think that's been a big part of the reason why I've eventually won there and why my play has gotten better there over the years.”
As for his back injury, he’s upbeat about his recovery and has no plans to play again before the Masters.
“I seem to have recovered from that pretty quickly,” he said. “It would have been nice to get those two extra rounds at Bay Hill.
"But I'm really pleased with how my body responded to that little setback, and excited to put some good work in here at home over the next few weeks and make a few trips up to Augusta National to play as well.”
When it comes to the Masters Club Dinner, he’s included "Elk Sliders” among the starters for a reason.
“In the build-up to the Masters last year, I got this big shipment of elk, and I was eating a lot of that, and I didn't want elk to be the main course,” he said.
There will also be an Irish touch with colcannon, or champ, a side dish.
“When I was a kid, I used to eat champ by the bowlful,” he revealed.
As McIlroy prepares for Augusta, Séamus Power plays the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook, having got in off the reserve list for the second week running.
South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence is the top-ranked player in the DP World Tour’s Hainan Classic in China, while on the HotelPlanner Tour, Gary Hurley hopes to continue his strong start to the season alongside Mark Power and Conor Purcell in the DP World PGTI Open near New Delhi.
Leona Maguire and Lauren Walsh play the LPGA’s Fortinet Founders Cup at Menlo Park in California, while Annabel Wilson and Aine Donegan tee it up in the LET co-sanctioned Australian WPGA in Queensland.
