{"id":12886,"date":"2026-04-13T09:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=12886"},"modified":"2026-04-13T09:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:01:50","slug":"masters-reaction-as-mcilroy-emulates-woods-nicklaus-and-faldo-by-retaining-title-at-augusta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=12886","title":{"rendered":"Masters reaction as McIlroy emulates Woods, Nicklaus and Faldo by retaining title at Augusta"},"content":{"rendered":"


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‘Like all great players’<\/span>published at 08:32 BST<\/span><\/p>\n

08:32 BST<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/span><\/span>Jonathan Jurejko<\/strong>
BBC Sport golf reporter<\/span><\/p>\n

There had been doubts. Rory McIlroy exuded serenity on the first two days as he surged into a record six-shot lead at the halfway stage, even though he was still far from his best off the tee.<\/p>\n

The same issue caught up with him in Saturday’s third round when he could not take advantage of scoreable conditions and allowed the field to close the gap.<\/p>\n

Like all great players, McIlroy ironed out his swing kinks and sacrificed distance with the driver for a greater accuracy which underpinned a gutsy one-under 71 in Sunday’s finale.<\/p>\n

The ability to stay patient and solve the problems which he faced was the key as McIlroy joined Jack Nicklaus, Faldo and Tiger Woods as back-to-back winners.<\/p>\n

Would McIlroy have been able to show the same resilience if he had not already claimed the Green Jacket? He did not think so.<\/p>\n

Throughout the past year McIlroy has insisted how he was returning as a different player and a different man.<\/p>\n

Over the past four days he has shown it was truly transformative.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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‘Like all great players’published at 08:32 BST 08:32 BST Jonathan JurejkoBBC Sport golf reporter There had been doubts. Rory McIlroy exuded serenity on the first two days as he surged into a record six-shot lead at the halfway stage, even though he was still far from his best off the tee. The same issue caught<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}