Brody Miller

4 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Brody Miller

They shook hands like gentlemen, exchanged a few kind words and patted each other on the back. From there on out, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau did not speak again for four hours. Masters Sunday. Final pairing. A duel so perfectly scripted that some suggested it to be the most anticipated final round in 25 years. On one side, 14 years of deeply-seeded pressure and torment. On the other, one of the tormentors. LIV vs. PGA Tour. Rory vs. Bryson for the green jacket. It did not get better than this.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Brody Miller

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Two months before the burden was lifted, when all the pressure in the world remained on Rory McIlroy's shoulders, he held steady in the path. At the Genesis Invitational in San Diego, McIlroy missed a putt on Torrey Pines' third hole and a fan yelled, "Blame your caddie!" No, sir. That doesn't fly with Rory. "Shut the (expletive) up," McIlroy said to the fan. There's the one line McIlroy won't let people cross. Eleven years without a major championship, and McIlroy tried everything.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Brody Miller

AUGUSTA, Ga. - This story can finally be published. The one we thought may never come, the one we doubted several times would come to pass as late as Sunday afternoon. The story that seemed written in the stars for 15 years, yet always abandoned and shoved back into the drafts folder to celebrate somebody else's crowning moment. The one Rory McIlroy has tormented himself chasing, secluding himself onto the New York City High Line, earbuds in, escaping from yet another heartbreak.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Brody Miller

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Rory McIlroy was walking and strutting toward the site of potential heartbreak, and he felt no fear. He made his way toward the exact water he chipped into 48 hours prior, toward the place, in years past, his tournament may have ended. His ball was still in the air, yet McIlroy just started to walk like the bouncy teenage Northern Irishman who first arrived on the scene earlier this century without a care in the world. Two hundred and five yards from the pin. That water in front.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Brody Miller

AUGUSTA, Ga. - It's a strange moment to realize Rory McIlroy feels the same way about Rory McIlroy as the rest of us. That he sees a ball in the pine straw and knows he can do anything with it, and he sees that same ball in the air and sees everything that can go wrong. That McIlroy can hit the potential shot of the tournament, and as he watches it he can say to himself:"You idiot. What did you do?"To watch McIlroy is to hope.