AUGUSTA — This sports entity shows up every spring with a record of consistent success, contends for the championship but falters in the final stages — but it’s not the Braves.
This entity also is haunted by its staggering collapse on its sport’s biggest stage — but it’s not the Falcons.
This entity perpetually searches for new approaches for getting over the hump but still ends up with disappointment — but it’s not Atlanta United.
And this entity’s fans are used to things unraveling in April — but it’s not the Hawks.
Dear reader, if something always has felt strangely familiar about Rory McIlroy’s inevitable failures at the Masters, it’s as clear as the blue sky that floated above Augusta National Golf Club on Friday — somehow he has become an Atlanta team unto himself.
Once again, the masses have descended upon Augusta National to cheer for the likable McIlroy to finally cloak himself in the long-coveted green jacket. Millions more around the world watch on television, hoping that this crash-and-burn expert can at long last evade a Sunday disaster.
But there also is the fatalist sense that, while we don’t yet know the circumstances, Lucy is going to pull the football away again, and is there a sports fan in Atlanta who doesn’t know that feeling to the very core?
Maybe McIlroy was fated to be a tragic sports figure in Georgia. He was born in 1989, months before a quintessentially hapless Falcons season — they were 3-13 and coach Marion Campbell retired 12 games into the season. Three days after he was born on May 4, the Hawks were beaten at home in the deciding Game 5 of a first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks, a loss that fit another Atlanta staple — a team built to compete for a championship sputtering.
The name Rory derives from the Gaelic word for red king. And, for most any tournament besides the one held every April here at the course at 2604 Washington Road, the name applies. But, on this hallowed turf, it is as ill-fitting a label for McIlroy as it is for the red-clad Falcons and Hawks 2½ hours to the west.
No red kings here, just irony.
McIlroy is the one who led the 2011 Masters with nine holes to play, only to bounce his 10th-hole tee shot off a tree and in between two cabins off the fairway. It triggered a meltdown that led to a final-round 80 whose gut-punch quality quite rivaled the collapse of a certain Atlanta football team that held a 25-point lead in a championship game in February 2017.
But it isn’t just that he lost in most epic fashion that makes McIlroy so Atlanta. He has been a perpetual favorite and played his way into contention, only to find ways to fall out. He has been lapped by opponents driving a different gear. He has come to Augusta having adopted different mindsets to try to handle the pressure. He has stumbled early and rallied late to raise hope that maybe next year would be the year, only for more disappointment to follow.
Just about the only thing he hasn’t done is give a gigantic contract to an aging caddie coming off a torn Achilles only for the caddie to get hurt but not admit it because he was afraid of being replaced by a younger caddie.
On Friday, I tried to take a close look at McIlroy during his second round, looking for clues that would suggest strains of Atlanta DNA. I’m not sure what I was hoping for, like to overhear him dropping Outkast lyrics or for an Uber Eats driver to pull up in a golf cart with an All-Star Special. But we proceeded.
After arriving to the tee at the par-3 fourth, his group waited for the threesome ahead of them to clear the green. Akshay Bhatia and Ludvig Åberg had their clubs in hand, seemingly anxious to tee off. McIlroy waited patiently, leaned against his bag. He took his club out of his bag only when the green was clear.
This is a man accustomed to handling traffic — 5 points.
After taking his stance over the ball, a car horn started honking in the distance. McIlroy didn’t flinch. Seriously, this guy is made for getting stuck on I-285 — 10 points.
Before teeing off, he picked up a few blades of grass and tossed them in the air to test the wind. Unsatisfied, he had his caddie step to the front of the tee box and do the same. In the gallery, a man whispered that he recently read that exercise isn’t actually an accurate gauge for wind. And then McIlroy’s tee shot came to rest nearly off the back of the green. McIlroy held up his palm in a “What just happened?” gesture.
Unwarranted faith in weather reports — minus-10 points.
On Friday, the would-be Atlanta sports franchise by way of Northern Ireland kept the drama going. A day after gagging up two late double bogeys in a grotesque imitation of a Braves reliever, the Atlanta Rorys climbed back to near the top of the leaderboard with a 6-under 66 to reach 6 under for the tournament.
Do you have room for heartache this weekend?
Is Rory McIlroy worth pinning your hopes on?
The perpetual questions for the Atlanta sports fan, posed once again.
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