Rory McIlroy has been on fire during the first two rounds of The Masters so far this week.
Rounds of 67 and 65 put McIlroy six shots clear at the halfway stage, and he’s now in a really strong position to become only the fourth man to win The Masters in consecutive years.
The 36-year-old Northern Irishman has played with a real kind of freedom that we haven’t really seen from him in the past at Augusta National.
The interesting thing this year is that McIlroy wasn’t heavily fancied heading into The Masters.
He hasn’t won on the PGA Tour so far this season and his back problem last month at Bay Hill was a real cause for concern ahead of Augusta National.
However, the 65 he shot on Friday was a sign that he’s well and truly at the top of his game.
In fact, McIlroy set a record after shooting seven-under at The Masters, equalling Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson’s tallies of 10 rounds of 65 or better in major championships.
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Not playing for four weeks in the lead-up to The Masters obviously hasn’t had a detrimental effect on McIlroy.
McIlroy was asked whether the reason he chose not to play any of the three events leading up to The Masters was to conserve energy,
“No, not really,“ the Northern Irishman explained.
“I honestly just don’t like the three tournaments leading up to this event. I’d rather come up here. I did a couple of days where I dropped Poppy to school, flew up here, played, landed back home and had dinner with her — or had dinner with Erica probably.
“Like I did a couple of day trips like that where I felt it was a better use of my time than going to Houston or San Antonio.
“It wasn’t really about conserving energy, but just I felt the more time I could spend up here, the better.“
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McIlroy is referring to the Valspar Championship, the Texas Children’s Houston Open and the Valero Texas Open.
The five-time major champion clearly feels like he doesn’t need to play competitively before The Masters in order to hone his skills.
Perhaps he will use that method moving forward before all of the major championships he plays.
While the 90th edition of The Masters is far from over, McIlroy is in pole position to win the sixth major of his career.
If he plays to anywhere near his full potential, it won’t even be close come Sunday.
