The mind behind McIlroy's Grand Slam glory at The Masters

Rory McIlroy fulfilled his date with golfing history by winning The Masters, with one of golf’s greatest minds playing a key role in his journey to Grand Slam glory.

McIlroy became just the sixth person to complete the career Grand Slam - and first since Tiger Woods - with his dramatic play-off win at Augusta National, defeating Justin Rose on the first extra hole to end an 11-year wait for a fifth major title.

The Northern Irishman has carried the burden of chasing the career Grand Slam over the past decade, with McIlroy using legendary sports psychologist Dr Bob Rotella to help deal with the mental challenge of returning to major glory.

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His clients have won over 75 men's and women's majors between them, including Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke, with McIlroy regularly highlighting Rotella's importance in his mindset shift and mental resilience when dealing with pressure.

"I would say staying in the bubble is probably the word we use the most," Rotella told Sky Sports. "It's a world that you create when you're on the golf course where you're just lost in your own world. Be Rory, get lost in Rory and have fun being Rory.

"When you're in that world, you can play. As a player you kind of get into a mindset in a place you learn to take yourself where you can play golf.

"There's so many different personalities out here that you learn to deal and you just have to be yourself. I think everybody in the field would love to be in their situation."

McIlroy had experienced 21 top-10s in majors without winning since his 2014 PGA Championship success, failing to convert a share of the 54-lead in The Open at St Andrews in 2022 before posting back-to-back runner-up finishes at the US Open.

"I think everybody else seems to talk about this scar tissue, but we don't ever talk about scar tissue," Rotella explained. "I think anyone that is a great athlete, particularly at this level, has mastered forgetting.

"You know, there's a great Mark Twain quote, where the inability to forget is infinitely more devastating than the inability to remember. We go to school and it's all about remembering stuff, whereas in sport it's all about forgetting.

"I think the great ones are really, really good at it. Part of it is that and part of it is they go, 'well, I really did a lot of stuff really good to be in that position'. The world tends to say that if you come close to winning and you don't win, you get a lot of grief.

"There's a whole lot of good stuff you do when you're getting contention. I think he's really good at being able to do that and that's the stuff we talk about. We talk about all the good stuff you're doing and you've got to keep doing it - that's the challenge.

An early sign of what could be to come for McIlroy this season came by a remarkable finish to his previous campaign, where he posted three top-three finishes in four starts on the DP World Tour before claiming the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.

He won his opening PGA Tour event of 2025 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am ahead of securing The Players a month later, with McIlroy finishing no worse than 17th in each of his first seven starts of 2025.

"He really kept playing through the entire off-season, played a lot of golf here and abroad with the plan that he wanted to be ready early in the year to build up, because he liked where all the majors were at this year," Rotella added.

"He worked on his mind and the year started off the way he loved it. If you remember when he went at Pebble, he was smart enough to immediately start talking about never won in California before and 'man, this is just like when I go to Augusta, I've never won there before'.

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"I think it helped, that two putt on 18 on Sunday (at The Players) from about 80 feet and making about a five-footer on the last hole - all of that was really good building up to it.

"We've had some very specific goals and really he's just trying to be in a great mindset and there's a feeling, a state when he knows he plays his best golf.

"Our major goal has been to be feeling that way all the time we're on the golf course."

Hopes of Grand Slam glory suffered an early setback when he made two double bogeys in a three-hole stretch of his opening-round 72, leaving seven strokes back, but a conversation with Rotella helped inspire an impressive fightback and back-to-back 66s.

"The wheels come off when you lose your composure and lose your mind - he went back in to par 16 and made a great up and down for par on 18," Rotella added." You don't do that if the wheels come off.

"Did he get two bad results on nice pitch shots? Yeah. But he kept his composure and he felt very good about all that. Would he have rather had those go in the hole or make a birdie on 15? Yeah.

"I think he was able to realize 'I like where my head was at on those shots, just didn't get the outcome and could dwell on that'. That's what we're all about and that's what mental toughness is all about.

"This game can make you unbelievably happy and it can break your heart, you just want to keep getting there and that's the thing. If you think about it, that's what great players do, they love being in contention. The whole world's watching them and they're right where they want to be."

Bryson DeChambeau claimed McIlroy refused to talk to him during a roller-coaster final day, with McIlroy fully focused on getting over the line and securing the Green Jacket

An emotional McIlroy broke down in tears on multiple occasions after his victory, praising the impact caddie Harry Diamond has had on his career and the support of his parents, with many expecting him to now add to his major tally in the months and years ahead.

"I'm sure it will be a very wonderful feeling and a very satisfying feeling for all the work and effort he's put it, because what he's really doing is chasing his potential," Rotella added.

"He just wants to find out how great he can get at golf, how far he can go and how many things he can accomplish. As you know, after he does it, the next week they [the media] are going to say, 'yeah, but can you do it again'?

"Then they're going to say, 'but can you win the next major' or 'can you win all of the majors? It doesn't ever stop. That's part of the whole point is when you're chasing potential, you really don't know what your potential is."

McIlroy started his week at Augusta National by talking about making his childhood dream of winning The Masters a reality. With Rotella's help, he has made his eight-year-old self extremely proud.

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