Three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson believes execution and never finishing the profession Grand Slam will likely be Rory McIlroy’s greatest psychological problem at Augusta subsequent week.
Mickelson received his first inexperienced jacket at his twelfth try in 2004 whereas Sergio Garcia, who will likely be making his a hundredth Main look subsequent week, set the file by successful in his nineteenth Masters begin in 2017.
Solely 4 gamers have taken 13 tries or extra to win the Masters, and whereas McIlroy will likely be making his seventeenth try this yr, with the potential for finishing the profession Grand Slam including to the expectation, Mickelson doesn’t see that burden as his greatest problem.
“Yeah, that is difficult,” Mickelson mentioned of the expectations on McIlroy’s shoulders as he ready for the Masters at LIV Golf Miami.
“However he is achieved it so many instances in his capacity to win tournaments. He is been in a position to compartmentalise that. I do not assume that is going to be a difficulty for him.
“I feel he drives the ball so lengthy and straight that he has an enormous benefit on that golf course. He and about 20 guys that drive it like he does can have a bonus of taking part in it a sure approach.
“They’ll play it a sure approach that’s way more aggressive and benefit from holes than some others; than guys like myself. However you continue to should execute, you continue to should hit the photographs, and I feel that is what he is centered on.
“I feel his capacity to compartmentalise all of the issues which have transpired prior to now is a energy of his, so I do not assume it will be a difficulty or I do not assume that is what’s holding him again from successful the Masters.”
Making it to Augusta is the objective for 120 of the 147-man subject taking part in this week’s Valero Texas Open.
The winner will earn the ultimate spot within the Masters subject, which is the objective for Séamus Energy and Pádraig Harrington at TPC San Antonio.
Whereas Harrington (53) was tenth simply two years in the past, he hasn’t received an occasion on the PGA Tour since 2015, whereas Energy has missed the reduce in his final three appearances there.
Sara Byrne makes her second LET look of the season within the Joburg Women Open at Modderfontein Golf Membership alongside Annabel Wilson and Lauren Walsh.
Her former Curtis Cup teammate Beth Coulter (21) fought again from bogeys at her first two holes to open with a degree par 72 within the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Beginner at Champions Retreat.
She birdied the ninth, twelfth and 14th earlier than following a bogey on the sixteenth with a par on the 18th in her quest to make the highest 30 and ties after 36 holes who qualify for Saturday’s last spherical at Augusta.
The Kirkistown Fortress star was tied for thirtieth, 9 photographs behind Stanford’s Megha Ganne, who opened with a bogey-free, nine-under 63 to steer by two photographs from defending champion Lottie Woad.
Ganne’s bogey-free opening spherical is the bottom spherical in Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Beginner historical past. The spherical, which included seven birdies and an eagle on the par-5 third gap, bested a file set by former Stanford teammate Rose Zhang (65 in 2023).
“I feel it was only a actually good day, Ganne mentioned. “Nice timing to have — that is my profession low in a golf event, so I had a sense I used to be going to go low at present, however not this low. So I’m simply attempting to get pleasure from it.”
At Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, an out of types Leona Maguire misplaced 6&5 to Canada’s Brooke Henderson in her first round-robin match within the T-Cell Match Play.
