“Get out of the results and into the process.” – Dr. Bob Rotella, The Golfer’s Mind
The second weekend in April is a special time for the golf world as it is my and many others’ favorite tournament of the year. For those who don’t know, that is when The Masters Tournament is held every year at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia and it is arguably the most prestigious golf tournament in the world. As golf commentator Jim Nantz appropriately describes, “It is a tradition unlike any other.”
What I love about The Masters is that it not only is a tradition unlike any other for the players in the tournament, but also for us as golf fans (or patrons as they are called at The Masters). We create our own traditions that surround this special week on the golf calendar. For myself, I play golf every Masters Saturday morning with friends and Sunday morning with my dad, leaving the early-to-late afternoons scheduled for appointment TV viewing of The Masters to watch the drama unfold. We crowd around our TV, captivated by the perfectly manicured Augusta National grass, beautiful Azalea flowers, and rich history that you can feel radiating through the screen.
The Masters invokes an emotion in us that we don’t get every week. It is one of the only tournaments where you can feel the magnitude of the event as a viewer at home, and the announcers play a large role in that. During Jack Nicklaus’s comeback win in 1986, where he became the oldest winner of the tournament at age 46, we remember Verne Lundquist’s call of Jack making a putt on the second to last hole, “Maybe…Yes sir!” To Tiger Woods chipping in on the 16th hole in 2005 and Verne a call of, “Wow! In your LIFE have you ever seen anything like that?!” We remember these iconic moments in golf history that all lead into where we are today.
We entered this year’s Masters Tournament the same way that we had entered the previous 11…with Rory McIlroy attempting to become the sixth player in history to achieve the career Grand Slam (to have won all four major championships in a career). Rory was on track to become this generation’s next great player, following Tiger Woods’ historic run. In 2011 at the young age of 21, Rory led the Masters Tournament going into the final round. Ultimately, the pressure proved to be too much, and he had a very memorable collapse to lose the tournament. This wouldn’t keep him down long, as he won his first Major championship later that year at the US Open, displaying his ability to overcome adversity on the most public of stages and capture the hearts of golf fans around the world, including mine!
Rory would go on to win two PGA Championships and the Open (formerly known as The British Open) to accompany that US Open victory. This meant that he had at that point won three of golf’s four major championships, just needing to win the Masters to complete the Career Grand Slam, which would solidify him as one of golf’s greatest champions. Yet despite Rory’s greatness throughout the years, he hadn’t won a Major Championship since 2014, and The Masters victory seemed to be one that he may never achieve.
The pressure Rory was feeling to achieve this historic feat was seeming to be insurmountable…then he implemented a plan.
He started working with Dr. Bob Rotella, a renowned golf mental coach, to work on developing a plan to overcome the years of heartbreak and to help him again play like the kid who piled up four quick Majors to start his career. There were countless “close-calls” where he would lose the lead right at the end a Major Championship; it seemed like he may have too much scar tissue to overcome his past losses, with fans feeling the pain alongside him. But he kept knocking on the door. He kept fighting. He kept working on his craft.
Rotella helped Rory remember how great he could be, and that all he needed to do was to play his own game, block out the noise, and let the good things come to him. He emphasized to Rory how resilient he has already been in his career, and that if he continues to stay in his own bubble, he will come out on top. He also helped Rory to set goals that are process-based, not results-based. Coming into this year, Rory’s main goal was to be feeling that he is always in a great mindset, because when he is, he knows he will play his best golf. "Our major goal has been to be feeling that way all the time we're on the golf course," Rory says.
Shifting his mindset from being results based to process based allowed Rory to enter 2025 as a different golfer than the one who has failed to accomplish the Career Grand Slam in the past 11 attempts. He visibly had a positive attitude and a plan that golf fans could see…sticking to his own game plan and being in a relaxed state despite headwinds that occurred throughout the 2025 Masters. In years past, some of the mistakes that he made on the course would likely have come up to haunt him. "The wheels come off when you lose your composure and lose your mind,” Rotella says.
For me watching, it was a complete roller coaster of emotions. I’ve been watching Rory play meaningful golf for more than half of my life and seeing him fall short so many times has not been fun. But something felt different this time. There was a confidence that no matter what got thrown his way, he would battle and fight back. He was outspoken about a plan of action and I loved to see that!
There were many times it felt like the wheels were coming off during this year’s Masters, then Rory would kick it back into gear and hit seemingly heroic shot after heroic shot. He overcame so many obstacles during the four days, stuck to his process, kept his composure, and took golf fans on a wild ride. He got off to a scorching hot start, then made two horrendous double bogeys to end up seven shots back after the first round. "I saw him and gave him a bear hug," Rotella shared. "The first thing I mentioned was, 'You cannot let two holes define how you view the round'. We discussed how well he had been playing, the shots that he took and succeeded, and he was actually upbeat – he knew he was playing well. But he was devastated by the mistakes, so the focus is on what went right. The second topic we discussed was comebacks. The greatest stories we tell in sports are the comebacks. I told him, 'It is time for a gut check…how resilient are you? Am I strong enough to go out there again and be ready for the challenge?’"
On Saturday’s third round, Rory made an incredible charge up the leaderboard to go into the final round with the lead. I was thinking to myself, “Could this be the year Rory does it?!” Then the first hole on Sunday comes around, and he makes another double bogey. Rory fans around the world have their stomachs drop and the feelings of déjà vu hit golf fans immediately. We all have flashbacks to his previous shortcomings and wonder if we are reliving history. Yet, Rory displayed his new mental resiliency to overcome yet another obstacle and would soon regain the lead, only to have multiple additional setbacks as the final round went on.
The new Rory didn’t let these setbacks define him. This Rory took baby steps and kept marching forward. He stayed positive, reminded himself how resilient he is, and ultimately, he let the process play out. This led him to making an incredibly resilient birdie on the first playoff hole to become the 2025 Masters Champion and newest Career Grand Slam Winner. CBS’s Jim Nantz summed it up perfectly, stating “The long journey is over. McIlroy has his masterpiece!”
In times like today, we as investors as well as Financial Advisors can learn valuable lessons from Rory McIlroy and his mental coach Dr. Bob Rotella. Rotella helped Rory formulate a plan that works for him. His goal was to win The Masters and complete the Career Grand Slam, but he didn’t do it in a way that focused on the end result. The constant focus was staying in the present, controlling what he could control, not worrying about the outside noise or any previously hit poor shots, and to remember how resilient he has proven to be throughout his career. This all put himself in position to win.
That resilience is something that we coach our clients through on a regular basis. It is imperative that if you seek long-term results, you have a process and a plan that you stick to in good times and bad. It can be challenging to tune out the noise in today’s world, or in Rory’s case tuning out unfortunate double bogeys and the outside pressure, but it is imperative to not just create the plan, but to channel our inner Rory McIlroy and to stick to that plan. If we control what we can control and are committed to the process, the results take care of themselves. It may take time, and there may/will be obstacles to overcome along the way, just as it took Rory 17 tries to win The Masters, but when that success comes, it makes all the tough times worth it.
-Clay Levy, May 2025
