‘Extremely Difficult’ Augusta Turns Villain For Jon Rahm & Rory McIlroy As Severe Conditions Force Mental Fatigue

The weather gods have not been all too forgiving at the 2024 Masters. Their anger seems to come at a cost to invitees. After all, following a rainy Day 1, not everyone could cope well with the gushes of high-speed winds that engulfed Round 2 of the Augusta National Golf Course. Among the players whose games suffered at the hands of the windy weather, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy’s names stand out the most.

This is because the defending champion and the pro who almost always wins, respectively, were among some of the most promising names on the roster in the race for the Masters title this year. Still, events took a turn such that Rahm is now stationed at T44 with a score of 5-over-par and McIlroy at T35 with a score of 4-over-par at the end of Day 2. So what became the biggest nemesis of these stars, who seem to be losing their luster at the hands of mental fatigue and frustration?

The challenging Georgian weather coupled with the difficulty that the Augusta National Golf Course poses are two of the most deadly roadblocks on the way to a glorious start to the Masters for these World Tour proponents. So much so that the Spaniard went as far as to term the ANGC “as hard a golf course as I’ve seen in a very long time.”

Describing how hard his experience was playing in the high-speed winds, Rahm said, “Very. A couple of times questioned myself why we were out there… the whole front of the green just full of sand…we were getting those massive gusts every couple of minutes or so. It was extremely difficult.”

The wind did not just become an impediment in Rahm’s dreams of a Green Jacket but also for his Global Golf ideology curator, Rory McIlroy, who shared his take on the weather-induced slow pace-of-play. He said, “It felt long…it was stop and start, hard to get into a rhythm with the conditions and obviously how slow the play was as well.”

Rory McIlroy does not have a major title since 10 years. Woahh. pic.twitter.com/mh1GybifT8

— Ryan Iqbal (@Ryan_i333) April 13, 2024

The wind-induced mental fatigue was talked about at length by the Northern Irishman, wherein the four-time major champion also highlighted the effects of wind on the massive yardage difference that could come in a matter of a few seconds and iterated, “Yeah, it’s hard. Mentally it’s a grind because you just have to try to commit as best you can to the shot that you’re trying to play. One second you’ll have a shot that’s playing 150, and then if the wind does something different, the shot could be playing 180. It could be a 30-yard difference. ”