Patience keeps McIlroy in Masters reckoning with a few dramas on way

Eight years Rory McIlroy has been coming here to try to win the major he needs to complete the grand slam, and it feels as if he has gone about it in eight different ways. There was the McIlroy who had discovered meditation, and the McIlroy who fixated on his method, the McIlroy who had been reading self-help books, the McIlroy who was studying the swing science, and the McIlroy who was muscled up because he was spending so much time in the gym; there was McIlroy who talked up how much the Masters meant and the McIlroy who played it down. None of them got it done. So this year he has brought boring Rory.

At the start of the week McIlroy kept talking about being conservative, disciplined and patient. His plan was to play for the middle of the green, pick off the birdie putts when they came and make sure he stayed away from the kind of trouble that ends up in the big numbers that leave him too much to do come Sunday. Which was not a bad strategy so far as they go. The only trouble with it is, as he said himself, is it is not a style of play that comes naturally to him.McIlroy is a risk-taker, a shot-maker, a heart-breaker: he sees too many possibilities in the game to take it slow and steady. “It goes against my nature.”

It might be better suited to one of the two men he was paired with – Brooks Koepka, who has always seemed like a man who knows exactly what he wants to do and how he is going to try to do it. It was an intriguing grouping. Koepka is 31, McIlroy 32, they have both won four majors and they have a bit of history. Once, when Koepka was asked if they were rivals, he said they could not be because McIlroy had not won any majors since he came on tour. McIlroy pointed out, not long afterwards, that Koepka had won