Liguori: This Should Be McIlroy's Week, But Not With Tiger Back At Augusta National
By Ann Liguori
» More Columns
AUGUSTA, Ga. (CBSNewYork) -- Rory McIlroy is hoping to complete a career grand slam by winning The Masters. If he does he will also have won his third consecutive major championship in the process.
He's all of 25.
If his name is at the top of the leader board at the end of the day Sunday he will become just the sixth player to win a career Grand Slam and the second youngest to do it behind Woods, who was 24 when he won the 2000 British Open to complete his career Slam.
McIlroy's historic quest should be the talk of Augusta National. And it probably would have been, had Woods not decided that his game was sharp enough to compete in his 20th Masters. Once Tiger announced that he'd be playing all eyes quickly turned to the guy whom Rory idolized growing up.
And if body language reveals lots about a person, it was McIlroy who looked more tense and tentative on Tuesday in the press room. Tiger looked more jovial and relaxed than ever before.
The 39-year-old, 14-time major winner, who skipped last year's Masters for the first time in his professional career, due to surgery for a pinched nerve in his back, was as happy as could be.
"I'm excited, excited to be back, to be back playing at this level," said Woods, who will be playing in his first tournament this season since pulling out of the Farmers Insurance Open in the first round in February because of tightness in his back. "There's no other tournament in the world like this, and to come back to a place that I've had so many great memories at and so many great times in my life, it's always special."
When asked what he has done over the last two months-plus, Tiger smiled and replied, "I worked my ass off. People would never understand how much work I put into it to come back and do this again. But it was sunup to sundown and whenever I had free time, if the kids were asleep, I'd still be doing it, and then when they were in school, I'd still be doing it. So it was a lot of work."
Tiger described his swing issues as being "stuck right between two release patterns" and how it taking time and effort to remedy was one of the reasons he decided not to compete for a while. He said once he got into the release pattern that he wanted to get into, he just had to "hammer it out and make sure it was ingrained."
When asked whether he gets tired of all the scrutiny he's received since his game fell apart, Woods said he chooses not to read articles about him.
"I've come to the understanding that I live it. I know exactly what I'm doing out here and I've hit the shots, and I don't really need someone else's secondhand opinion of what I was thinking of. I know exactly what I was doing out there," he said.
McIlroy seemed resigned to the fact that he's going to play second fiddle as long as Woods is still in the tournament.
"It's such a big story, Tiger coming back at the Masters after a bit of a lengthy period where he has not been around. But still I'm just here to play golf and you guys can write the stories, and I won't read them and we'll move on," McIlroy said.
The two are starting to sound a lot alike in that department. And for the record, McIlroy said that Niall Horan from the band One Direction will be his caddie in Wednesday's par-3 competition, while Tiger said his two children, son Charlie and daughter Sam, will be caddying for him.
McIlroy said his game plan has been to maintain "his game where it's at and put in some quality work but not overdo it." He said he hasn't been working on anything specific and hasn't been thinking about technique at all.
"Just all about hitting the shots I need to and thinking about how to manage my game and get it around here for the next four days," he said.
McIlroy admitted he enjoyed spending a couple of weeks "just preparing at home and in private and not really having everything critiqued and analyzed and overanalyzed. So I just wanted to get away from it all and I feel like it's been a good thing."
Not to get ahead of ourselves but it's natural for many to look forward to a potential Woods-McIlroy final round battle. But if that were to happen, Tiger doesn't look or sound ready to pass the baton for a long time, despite the 14-year age difference between the two.
And although it looks like he is passing the torch in the new NIKE ad, Tiger was as serious as ever when he talked about what continues to motivate him.
"My greatest motivation? Winning," he said. "I like it."
Follow Ann on Twitter at @AnnLiguori
