2015 Masters: Can Rory McIlroy overcome pressure and win?

Rory McIlroy is dealing with plenty of pressure leading into the 2015 Masters to complete the grand slam, will he succeed?

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland is a 25-year-old golfer that the world has looked upon in the last couple years as the golfer who is taking over for the aging Tiger Woods. He’s the one being passed the torch as the next dominant golfer in history.

At least this is what everyone’s saying.

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Rory became a dominant force on the PGA Tour last season when he exploded in the summer, winning his first British Open, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and his first PGA Championship all back-to-back-to-back. This propelled him to the top of the world golf rankings and he comes into The Masters as the top ranked player in the world. It’s much deserved for his stellar play in the last few years at such a young age.

All McIlroy needs for his trophy room is a Green Jacket, which would help him complete his major “grand slam” because he’s already won the U.S. Open, the British Open and two PGA Championships. If McIlroy wins, he will join a short list of great players who have completed the grand slam in the past including notable players like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen and Gary Player.

He has nearly won The Masters before, but the tournament has slipped through Rory’s fingers in the past couple years. In 2013, Rory looked poised to have a chance to win after two rounds, but a third round score of 79 caused him to fall way back. In 2014, McIlroy’s second round score of 77 crippled him despite going under par in each of his other three rounds, resulting in a tied for eighth place finish.

When Tiger Woods announced he would enter the field for the 2015 Masters, it helped and hurt Rory. It helped Rory in the sense that most of the attention falls on Tiger Woods now and Rory won’t be so heavily scrutinized by the media in days leading up to the first round. On another note, if he wins The Masters while Tiger is in the field it further signifies that he has “taken over” as golf’s greatest player at the moment.

But it isn’t all good.

Tiger’s presence also hurts McIlroy because it’s even more pressure on him to do what Woods was able to do at 24 years old and complete the grand slam as a 25-year-old.

Furthermore, this whole passing of the torch business between Woods and McIlroy has gotten a little out of hand. First of all, Tiger Woods is 39-years-old and the greatest golfer the game has ever seen. Sure, he hasn’t won a major since 2008 but he’s by no means done. He was the world No. 1 and had five wins in 2013. Since then he’s been plagued with injuries and has been working to adjust his game to avoid more back and knee problems.

He’ll hope to get back on track this week, but the popular belief from people not named Tiger is that he’ll miss another cut.

Rory McIlroy is undoubtedly the more successful golfer presently, but until Tiger Woods is done no torch is getting passed. This kind of talk can’t be good for McIlroy’s mental game, because he could be feeling even more pressure to replicate Tiger Woods’s success and if he can’t win this week, it could be a crushing blow for him.

Nike made a great ad for McIlroy, which paid tribute to Tiger Woods depicting him as the primary influence in McIlroy’s decision to pursue golf.

This year on the PGA Tour, Rory has played in just three PGA Tour events. He missed the cut at the Honda Classic but was able to secure a T-9 finish at the Cadillac Championship and a T-11 finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

While Rory McIlroy has been dominant in the last two PGA Tour major tournaments, I don’t think he’ll win this this week at Augusta National. His history suggests that he chokes at the Masters and with the pressure at level 10 this week for him, I think he’ll have another one round meltdown that ruins his score for the rest of the tournament.

Don’t even be surprised if you don’t even see Rory in the top 25 come Sunday afternoon.

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