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McIlroy, now 36, will tell you he doesn\u2019t have the seeming invincibility of Nicklaus, the intense focus of Faldo, nor the drive of Woods (no pun intended).<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat’s not me,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cThat’s not what I want to do. Honestly, I don’t care. Golf is the most amazing game because it’s you and your golf ball and the golf course, and that’s it. You shouldn’t be affected by anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Rory]()
<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts on the 18th green during the final round of the 2026 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 12, 2026 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Maddie Meyer\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Maddie Meyer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
For two rounds of this Masters, he was affected by no one. McIlroy was 12 under par through 36 holes and led by a record six strokes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe underestimates himself a little bit there,\u201d 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott said. \u201cThere aren’t many players that would stand on a tee box and be able to go toe-to-toe with him. When he gets up there and pounds one 340 down the first (hole), there’s only really a handful of guys (who can do that). Then they start dwindling out when you start going to irons and putting the whole game together as well. He’s the complete package.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The package doesn\u2019t always reach its destination unscathed. McIlroy gave more than a dozen others hope Saturday when he shot a 1-over 73 on a day when the field averaged 70.63 \u2014 a third-round record low for the Masters. While leading the field in driving distance (347.2 yards), he ranked next-to-last in accuracy, hitting only 21 of 42 fairways.<\/p>\n
After fulfilling his media obligations Saturday evening \u2014 he is among the most engaging players in a sport of many well-spoken athletes \u2014 McIlroy went to the practice area to work on his game.<\/p>\n
The result was straighter drives, most notably on 13, a hole where he drove into the pine straw to the right of the fairway the first three days. He found the fairway on Sunday and produced the birdie that got him to 13 under par and on his way to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough weekend,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI did the bulk of my work on Thursday and Friday, but I\u2019m just so happy to hang in there and get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Others took runs at him. Playing partner Cameron Young, who began the day tied with McIlroy, had a two-shot lead at one point, but he had no birdies after the fifth hole. Justin Rose, who lost the playoff to his Ryder Cup teammate last year, led by two at the turn but faltered on the back.<\/p>\n
McIlroy now gets to keep the green jacket another year as he raised his total of major victories to six, tying him with Lee Trevino, Nick Faldo and Phil Mickelson, tied for 12th all-time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s an incredible player,\u201d said England\u2019s Tyrell Hatton, who finished in a four-way tie for third, \u201cand pretty cool what he’s done in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
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No one has ever won the Masters three years in a row. That\u2019s a storyline for next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland holds the Masters trophy after being awarded the Green Jacket following his victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6094,6093,1271,56],"class_list":["post-31527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-masters-tournament","tag-column","tag-latestnews","tag-masters-tournament","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}