When Rory McIlroy became only the fourth player to win back-to-back green jackets at the 2026 Masters, it was far from a vintage performance from the 36-year-old.
It was a week where the Northern Irishman battled with his driver throughout, missed shots he’d usually flush, and yet still found a way to get the job done at Augusta National Golf Club.
The European followed Jack Nicklaus, Sir Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods in being the only players to have retained their Masters title earlier this month doing so in a way we can all learn from.
That’s the opinion of PGA qualified golf coach Jack Backhouse and professional golfer Nicola Slater, who both gave some insight into how his victory can be a learning curve for club golfers on the Your Golf by NCG podcast.
Always play to your strengths
McIlroy’s driving wasn’t at its best for large parts of the week. By his standards, it was erratic. But crucially, he never abandoned it.
“It’s that keep swinging mentality,” Slater pointed out.
“You’re going to have a few bad swings within a round of golf, everyone’s going to do it, even Rory showed it there. He had some bad swings, but that doesn’t mean he suddenly put the driver away and was like, ‘Oh, well, that’s that’.”
Backhouse was equally struck by the six-time major champion’s persistence with the big stick.
“He still backed himself after all those wide shots,” he noted.
“He started the back nine having driven it so wide for like the first three and a half rounds, he then hit tee shots on 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15, all were like 315 yards in the fairway.
“He’s obviously at no point didn’t have confidence in that club, or didn’t have the confidence in himself. He had a game plan. He stuck to it and leaned into it.
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“And eventually, if you’re good at something, it comes back around. You’ve just got to back yourself more. Don’t give up on your strength.”
The value of immediate post-round practice
There were certainly signs of McIlroy, as with all great champions, adjusting his game throughout the week to cope with his bad shots.
The pair noticed he adjusted his tee height as the tournament progressed, for them, it was a clear indication he’d been putting in time on the range after rounds.
For Slater this is something club golfers consistently fail to do, as she pointed out: “I think even if you go hit like 20 balls, just like 20 shots to try and figure out what happened (went wrong), iron a few things out, because it’s all fresh in your mind.
“I think sometimes I was a bit guilty of, ‘oh, I’ll leave that until tomorrow’. But by the time tomorrow comes around, it’s a new day and it’s a new swing.
“And the same applies to not just hitting balls, but putting and chipping. If you didn’t hole out very well, five or 10 minutes of just doing that before you jump in your car is absolute gold dust to try and sort of set you up for the next round.”
Smart course management
Perhaps the reason the biggest reason the Northern Irishman got over the line wasn’t his ball striking but his decision-making.
“Although it wasn’t going his way, he never once started going for pins that were inaccessible, or hitting it in the trees and then trying to play shots through the eye of a needle just for the chance of making a birdie,” Backhouse said.
“He picked his moments really well,” Slater added. “There were a few occasions where he did just knock it to 30 feet, two putt and walked off.
She went on to highlight how often amateurs get this wrong.
“There’s sometimes no need to go for them glory shots. And I think it does go back to the fact that he never really hit himself in that bad of a position to have to go for a hero shot as such.
“I think you do see a lot of amateur golfers suddenly getting into the trees, and then they’re trying to bend it around trees and through little gaps, and you can’t even get to the green at this point. So it’s pointless.”
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