The Masters pre-tournament favourite was left with plenty to meditate on after struggling to read the greens

It is surprising Rory McIlroy is not a superstitious sort, since he seemed to have tried every other little thing he can think of that might help him win. This year he h s come here with a performance guru, Dr Clayton Skaggs from the Central Institute for Human Performance, a stash of self‑help books and a newfound interest in meditation. But given the way he started on Thursday, it is just as well he does not believe in omens.

McIlroy blew his opening drive wide right into the trees, just like he did back at the start of the final round in 2018, when he started the day in second place and wound up six shots back.

This time, McIlroy’s ball thumped into the leg of a young spectator walking back towards the tee and fell dead in the pine straw. “You owe me, Rory,” said the kid. “I just saved you two shots.”

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McIlroy sketched a route out through the trees to the green, aiming low underneath the branches, but the ball cracked flush into a trunk and ricocheted away to the other side of the fairway. He needed three more from there, so he started with a bogey. He should have made it up on the very next hole, but his short putt meandered idly around the right side of the hole and he had to tap it in for par.

You could tell then that it was going to be one of those days when McIlroy would have to sweat every putt. He missed five of them between five and 10 feet, which meant that he needed 32 putts and as soon as he stepped off the 18th he scurried back to the practice green.

“I’m going to go try to figure this out,” he said. “It was the reads more than anything else. I over-read a few early on, and then I started to under-read them coming in.”

He had a theory that the ball was not breaking like he expected because the greens were so slow, but he sounded pretty flummoxed about it.

He finished with a 73, his worst opening round here since 2010. Despite that he played some wonderful golf tee to green, though, and reeled out a series of preposterously long drives. He averaged 324 yards off the tee and if he was not always that accurate he was good enough out of the rough that it did not matter.

Augusta’s founders, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, would have winced to see the way he played their famous 13th by crashing his tee shot over the trees, but would have enjoyed his wonderful approach on the 15th, which landed on the back edge of the green.

There were five birdies, three of them at the three remaining par-fives, and six bogeys, including two back-to-back at the 10th and 11th, where he fluffed a flaccid little chip, and two more at the 17th and 18th, which was a rotten way to finish.

It had been that way all day, up on one hole, down on the next, his round was all swings, slings, roundabouts and arrows. McIlroy said: “I’ve been through it all here before.”

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At least he was still in contention. In previous years he has ruined his chances with a run of nine bad holes somewhere along the way in the first three days.

McIlroy reckoned the course was there for the taking. There was only a lick of breeze and after two days of heavy rain the ground was soft and forgiving, but the tournament committee, eager to protect the old place’s dignity, were pretty pitiless with the pin positions.

Not that that is what cost him. He said himself that he made “too many mistakes from pretty simple positions”. Which sounds like more of a mental problem than a technical one. You guess that Dr Skaggs may have had a long night over at McIlroy’s house.

Those two old champions, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, were chatting about this in the morning. “Right now Rory is playing probably better than anybody,” Nicklaus said. “At least from what I’ve seen watching him practice in the last month or so.”

Player agreed with that. “He has the best swing in the field, no question. The talent is all there. But it all comes back to the mind.”

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Nicklaus had a theory on that, too. He thinks McIlroy should stop worrying about the grand slam. He says that the title does not matter a damn anyway, which is the kind of thing you can say when you’ve won it yourself.

“I never even thought about it,” Nicklaus said. “When I won the British Open in ’66 I don’t recall anyone even mentioning it. So I never thought about it. And if I was in Rory’s position I would just be looking at trying to win the Masters, not trying to finish a grand slam. To win the Masters, that’s enough to worry about it.”