EXCLUSIVERory McIlroy's mind guru reveals secrets behind star's newfound mental toughness as he bids to finally end Masters drought

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For all the complications written across Rory McIlroy’s scorecards at Augusta, the solutions sound so simple when they come from the man entrusted with his mind.

‘You have to accept there will be mistakes and misses and bad breaks,’ says the sagely figure on the other end of the phone line from the United States.

‘If you say you love golf, then this is the game you've chosen to be in love with. Love all of it. If you’re good with that, you’ll be okay.’

So speaks Dr Bob Rotella, the septuagenarian godfather of sporting psychology who might find himself doing more heavy lifting than anyone in McIlroy’s immediate orbit in the next week.

While every armchair swinger has a view on McIlroy’s psyche, and especially how it relates to the Masters, Rotella has had his ear for three years. As he will once more when he joins McIlroy in Georgia for the resumption of that never-ending quest to complete the grand slam.

If there is still a mystery as to why McIlroy has never won there in 16 visits, then it is usually matched by the intrigue around how he will address the topic on arrival. The gymnastics he has performed in that walnut-lined media auditorium would equal the prime of Simone Biles.

Rory McIlroy will make his 17th attempt at winning the Masters when he heads to Augusta National next week

McIlroy's best finish at the tournament came in 2022 when he placed second, hitting a 64 in his final round 

We have heard him elevate this tournament over the years and minimise it. He has spoken of juggling golf balls in his rented house, of self-help books, of meditation; there have also been trips to Butch Harmon for bombastic pep-talks and reassurance.

If we were to condense all of the mental approaches McIlroy has attempted to finish his masterpiece, we might use settle on a single word: confusion. And typically expectation has only seemed to exacerbate it.

So his form, with three wins in his past seven starts, poses quite a scenario.

He is coming in hot, as he has many times, and a ‘more complete’ player than he has ever been, by his own assessment. The wedges are drastically tighter, his work around the greens is far sharper, both of which are essential at Augusta, and inconsistencies off the tee have been mitigated by what the former European Ryder Cup Paul McGinley captain calls ‘a very key factor’.

‘Working with Dr Bob Rotella has had a big impact on him and we are really seeing it now,’ McGinley told Mail Sport this week.

Dr Rotella’s job, in the crudest summary, has been to quieten the inner monologue. To chase history by ignoring how much it weighs.

‘Basically our goal for the year was to approach all of the majors the same,’ Dr Rotella tells Mail Sport. ‘The challenge is that he's playing very nice golf at the moment and can you deal with the expectations and stay present?

‘I mean, he's very excited. He kept playing golf all off season because he wanted to be ready early in the year. And you know, when you want it as badly as he wants to win the Masters, you have to be able to temper it a little bit and allow yourself to just go play golf. Because he’s a darn good golfer.

McIlroy comes into the competition in fine form, claiming his second Players Championship at Sawgrass last month

The Northern Irishman believes he is a ‘more complete’ player than he has ever been

‘We keep saying, “Just let yourself be Rory. Be yourself”.’

But who is Rory McIlroy in 2025? Where does he stand in the game, if the conversation can ever be allowed to stretch beyond his 11-year wait for a fifth major?

To listen to McGinley, one of the shrewdest analysts in the game, it is straightforward. ‘He has won everything else in the game many times over,’ he says. ‘I know the majors will always be what people talk about, and Augusta, but you also have to look at what else he has done.

‘Who, since McIlroy came on the scene (in 2007), has had his longevity at the top of the world rankings? Jordan Spieth has come and gone from the top 10, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm is on a bit of a flat line. Scottie Scheffler is here now but how long is he going to be at the top? Can he match all the years Rory has done?’

In the eyes of many sensible observers, McIlroy has been the most consistently successful golfer since the Tiger Woods era, amassing an astonishing body of work: 28 PGA Tour wins, a further 18 on the DP World Tour, six European order of merit crowns, a hat-trick of FedEx Cup victories, a combined 122 weeks as world No 1.

That he has won at Pebble Beach and Sawgrass since the beginning of this year has contributed drastically to a hiking of expectations. As Butch Harmon told me on Wednesday: ‘Rory is the outright favourite.’

But then you talk about localised scar tissue. About the 10th tee at Augusta in 2011 and that collapse. And missed cuts in two of his past five attempts, including 2023 when he was even more confident than today and fell to pieces.

Fused with the 11 years of near-misses in the majors, none more galling than his choke at the US Open last summer, ‘being Rory’ is considerably easier said than done on the biggest stage.

McIlroy worst showing at the Masters came in 2012 when he finished tied for 40th thanks to a disastrous fourth round

‘I keep reminding him, this is a game of mistakes,’ says Dr Rotella, whose seminal book, Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect, has supplied the blueprint for his work with McIlroy. Their conversations are less about alchemy than acceptance.

‘It is how you move on,’ Dr Rotella says. ‘If you’re in the fairway, how do you get in the hole? If you’re in the trees, how do you get to the hole? Same question for both eventualities.

‘Being unflappable and being totally, completely accepting, is a big, big part of it. A beautiful part of the human mind is you can go wherever you want to.’

As plain as that can sound, the work in that direction has been a vital area of improvement, according to McGinley. ‘The big thing I’ve noticed is he's less hard himself,’ he says. ‘He moves on very quickly from a bad shot or a setback. Nobody is better than Scottie Scheffler at leaving a bad shot behind and if you’ve noticed, Rory has spoken a lot about watching what Scheffler has done.

‘What we're seeing with Rory now is his ability to not linger on mistakes. He's able to hang in when he's not quite got his best stuff and still shoot decent scores.

‘A big one for me was when he won the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai last November. The Americans won't make a big deal about that because it wasn't on the PGA Tour but it was a strong field and Rory was in control with 10 holes to play.

‘Suddenly, Rory dropped a couple, Rasmus Hojgaard was level and we had to see how Rory would respond. Coming up short was becoming a narrative - he’d had the US Open, got passed on the rails by Hojgaard at the Irish Open, lost a play-off at Wentworth to Billy Horschel, so we’re all watching. Then he hits a wedge to one foot at 16 for birdie and birdies the last as well - to finish the way he did, that shows the toughness.’

Dr Rotella has reinforced the need for McIlroy to have a set routine when he plays. Rather like Jonny Wilkinson’s crouch before a kick, the trigger point for McIlroy is when he has finished his walk between shots put his hand on the next club.

Dr Bob Rotella has reinforced the need for McIlroy to have a set routine when he plays

‘When you're on the golf course, you want to be lost in your own little world, and you want to be mesmerized by that next shot,’ Dr Rotella says. ‘You're not thinking about the consequence or what it could do for your life.

‘Sure, he’d love to win the Masters. He might go to bed dreaming about it, but once he gets on the course, he has a routine.

‘That routine, getting in a bubble, is important.’

Not much makes Dr Rotella so reassured as when he sees McIlroy back off from a shot.

‘TV can present something like that as nerves, but I’m clapping when it happens,’ he says. ‘I know when a golfer does that he has caught his mind going to a wrong place. That’s not nerves – that’s saving yourself a shot or two. It’s called owning your mind.’

For all the talk of routines and bubbles, it was only 10 months ago when McIlroy started staring at leaderboards on the back nine at the US Open and blew two small putts to hand the title to Bryson DeChambeau. The four-footer at the last was the kind that leaves a permanent bruise.

Rotella offers his view: ‘If you're going to chase big-time dreams, let's face it, you're going to get your heart broken a lot.

‘I can tell you he is a very mentally tough, very strong, resilient man. I think the most impressive thing about Rory is the fact that he's willing to keep getting in contention in today's world. If you get in contention and win, they tell you you're wonderful, and if you don’t, they give you great big questions. He is better at pushing past that.’

Tt was only 10 months ago when McIlroy started staring at leaderboards on the back nine at the US Open and blew two small putts to hand the title to Bryson DeChambeau

Any optimism around these sentiments are of course a hostage to the coming days – they could all age badly. But what is not in dispute is the general climb in McIlroy’s wider game.

If the 2023 US Open was an example of his weakness inside 150 yards, based on how few scoring chances he gave himself from the fairway in a two-horse race against Wyndham Clark, then his performance in winning the Players Championship was the latest reminder of how effective he has become in that vital department in the past year. 

More so, because his driving, while still a decisive weapon, has been nagging at him all season.

Harmon said: ‘If you've gone out and won two early tournaments in this season, when not playing your best, I think that's the barometer of a great player. Tiger Woods used to talk about that a lot – winning with his B game. Rory winning with his B game is a good thing.

‘He can win when he's playing really well and now he can win when he's playing pretty average. He’s upped his ability to do that.

‘If you remember, Rory came to see me a week before the Masters last year, and he had been struggling from 150 yards and in. 

The shot we worked on was trying to take the ball out of the air a little bit, a three-quarter swing. On the 17th at the Players Championship a few weeks ago, he did one perfectly in the play-off to win.

‘I was texting with his caddie, Harry Diamond, after the win, and we were talking about that one shot, and his ability to now play it under pressure. The distance he hits off the tee, every damn hole could be a 150-yard shot and with it he's going to be hard to beat.’

Butch Harmon believes McIlroy's ability to win tournaments when he's no tat his best is a good thing

For now, McIlroy and the Masters remains a one-sided kind of love and an indecipherable riddle

Alas, Scheffler might have something to say about that – he hasn’t won since the Olympics but is finding form again.

As for Xander Schauffele, the winner of two majors last year, his slow recovery from a rib injury creates the sense that the window for McIlroy is wider.

But somehow that conclusion is reached at this point every year. Somehow the job never gets done.

For the time being, McIlroy and the Masters remains a one-sided kind of love and an indecipherable riddle.

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