Ben Coley's Masters analysis: Rory McIlroy's resilience lights up Augusta

Resilience before brilliance

Great golfers are made great in part by their resilience, and I'm not sure that's said enough. Scottie Scheffler went through a total putting crisis between Masters wins, but he kept going and he figured it out. Tiger Woods, for goodness sake. Jack Nicklaus. It's why we should be sure that Jon Rahm will find his competitive edge again after his worst ever Masters. And it's something we tend to underestimate when it comes to Rory McIlroy.

Play beautifully, as he did today, and it's normal. Expected. This is the most 'naturally talented' golfer of his generation, of course he's waltzed around Augusta National in 66 strokes. Except it isn't normal and we should never expect it, never take it for granted. McIlroy is as resilient as he is hard-working, yet he's cast as the opposite. Flawed? Absolutely. Genius? And then some.

This then must be the most satisfying round of this part of his career. Yes, the part without majors, a puzzle to which he must find the answer. As Rory knows and Rahm is finding out, ultimately, when you are who they are and you're facing these questions, there is no other path. McIlroy once said that he read The Obstacle Is The Way and he knows full well what the obstacle is, that there is no way around it.

But the round. Sixty-six shots, none of them wasted.

McIlroy was edgy out of the gate; you sense he felt, viscerally, that these first few shots were a golfing knife-edge: get them right and who knows what this weekend may bring. Get them wrong and suddenly it's five-under to a few over, a weekend off, questions he's not able to at least attempt to answer for a year.

Then he settled into it, birdies at 10 and 11 igniting this round, reigniting his tournament. And so we come to the moment: an approach shot from the pine straw on 13, over Rae's Creek. One yard or so to the right and you can be sure that the decision, rather than the execution, would've been called into question. 'Why did he take that on and risk undoing all the good work?' We've heard it all before, haven't we. One yard or so short, likewise. How is it that our entire roryview can be shaped a puff of wind or the bounce of a ball?

What could have been disaster now looks like perfection and no longer are people wondering whether he ought to have laid up or whether Scheffler would've taken it on or anything else. They're awed by that brilliance again, as we have all been a thousand times before. But what of the resilience that let brilliance sing?

In time, maybe it's that which we'll most admire about McIlroy. Or maybe we'll most admire that, somehow, in spite of it all, he became a grand slam champion.

The 2025 version of that dream almost died on Thursday evening. On Friday afternoon, it felt so alive.

McCartyism

Matt McCarty's first round at Augusta began birdie-birdie and he shot a decent 71. His second round began six-six, three shots dropped, and he carded a spectacular 68. Welcome to the Masters, son.

Along with Rasmus Hojgaard, McCarty, a left-hander who quickly became a PGA Tour winner following a superb Korn Ferry Tour campaign last year, stands out on this leaderboard because he is a debutant. And because he has no idea what it's like to contend for a major.

That sets he and Hojgaard apart and serves as a reminder that the single best guide to what to expect in a major championship is what has happened in recent major championships.

From leader Justin Rose down to Xander Schauffele on the fringes of the top 15 or so, virtually every player here has been in a scenario similar to this one at some stage recently. Such experiences are an enormous advantage.

This is why we ought to expect McCarty to struggle at some stage soon, Hojgaard too. The prospects of a first debut winner since 1979 are virtually zero, the prospects of someone without major battle scars likewise. This is the biggest of the big leagues.

LIV and let die

Two missions this week have been hard to stick to: enjoy the Masters whatever happens to another embarrassingly poor set of outright selections, and don't think about LIV Golf and what it has done to this game.

But this leaderboard says so much about the winners and losers since that circuit's inception three years ago that there's no escaping the need to at least talk about it.

Bryson DeChambeau has been the big winner. His wealth, yes, has skyrocketed, but so has his popularity. His majors haul has doubled, the second US Open so much more meaningful than the first given the timing, the circumstances, the opposition, and the shot which those who saw it will never forget.

Never has DeChambeau appeared more comfortable in his own skin. He seems like a man who has found his home and he's a persistent threat in at least three of the majors, just as he will be when the fourth returns to St Andrews if not before.

Then there's Rahm.

He's a winner in some ways; of an enormous signing-on fee, of the LIV Golf individual standings last year. But in majors, so far, he has been a loser: whether he makes this cut or not, his Masters appearances since he left the PGA Tour will have been his worst. He missed the cut in the PGA Championship for just the second time in eight, too. He missed the US Open through injury, then snuck into the top 10 without ever threatening to win the Open.

Rahm is one of the very best players of this generation and anyone unwilling to scrutinise his performances does him a severe disservice.

He would probably disagree that LIV Golf has anything to do with his results in majors. Just last week, he was part of a promotional video dismissing the idea that he doesn't care although surely, nobody ever thought that anyway. He is of course going to say that he is happy, that he holds no regrets; that he's played bad golf before and it is the same wherever he chooses to be.

But what Nick Faldo has said, about the fear of failure and how making cuts and earning your money the hard way is what keeps a player sharp, feels important to at least ponder. In ways Rahm may not himself realise, maybe he's lost an edge. Maybe, having Joaquin Niemann as his chief threat each week rather than Scheffler and McIlroy has not been good for him as a competitor. Maybe he can finish inside the top 10 every time and kid himself that says something. Maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't.

Let's at least stop pretending he's thrilled with the current state of men's professional golf and his part in it. You can believe LIV Golf to be the best thing that has happened to the sport; you should still be able to recognise that Rahm expected his move to help speed up an agreement between the two tours, one which could have allowed him to try to win The PLAYERS Championship, as Scheffler and McIlroy have done twice each, and to return to his beloved Torrey Pines to take on Ludvig Aberg.

All of this, the nature of LIV Golf, the fact that he remains the single most shocking defector, the pressure he must feel to prove doubters wrong, must be weighed as we ponder some of the most difficult questions there are in golf at the moment: just where does Rahm slot in now? When will he next compete for a significant tournament at the very highest level against the best players in the world? Why did he do it?

Langer departs

Bernhard Langer is playing in his final Masters and, at the age of 67 needed to shoot level par to make the cut. He had been on course to do so before taking seven at the 15th then dropping one more shot at the last. So close, so far: what might've been a weekend celebrating will now be one perhaps spent regretting the way it ended. Hopefully, such regret doesn't linger. What a career he's had, not just here, but mainly here.

"A fantastic 41 years here at Augusta as a player, I look forward to many more as a non-competing past champion," he said. "It was really fun playing the last two days, I got lots of various standing ovations all over the golf course."

It's not going to feel the same without him.

Scheffler cooks up more magic

If Min Woo Lee is 'Dr Chipinski', Scottie Scheffler must be, erm, Consultant Chipinston? Whatever, yesterday's equivalent piece mentioned how his short-game had been the key contributor towards wins in 2022 and 2024, and it certainly helped propel him forwards here with a chip-in at 12 before an up-and-down par save at 13, the key period in a round which briefly looked set to get away from him.

Scheffler made mistakes, despite the broadcast spending all of the front nine telling us that he doesn't make mistakes, but he got out of trouble for the most part. And, as McIlroy had a few hours earlier, he enjoyed a huge stroke of fortune when his approach to the 12th came back down the bank, setting the stage for a very Scheffler birdie.

All Masters winners need a bit of luck, and they also need magic in their hands. Scheffler, as Spieth before him, continues to enjoy both. He's the biggest problem if all you can think about is what it'd be like if Rory McIlroy won a grand slam this weekend.