AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy had every reason to believe the Masters would be the first major he won. He was 21 with no scar tissue, only brown, curly locks spilling out of his cap. And most importantly that Sunday afternoon in 2011, he had a four-shot lead.

Now it's the only major he hasn't won. That's been the chatter chasing McIlroy down Magnolia Lane for the last 11 years. And it's never been louder.

Is this the year he joins the most elite club in golf with the career Grand Slam?

“It's noise,” McIlroy said Tuesday at Augusta National. “It's just trying to block out that noise as much as possible. I need to treat this tournament like all the other tournaments that I play throughout the year.”

Right.

“Look, I understand the narrative and the noise, and there's a lot of anticipation and buildup coming into this tournament each and every year,” he said. “But I just have to keep my head down and focus on my job.”

He has tried playing the week before the Masters. He has taken off the week before, sometimes three weeks before. Nothing seems to work. This year brings something new — winning. For the first time, McIlroy comes to Augusta National having won twice this season, both against strong fields on famous courses (Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass).

Is this the year?

History is not on his side. Only five players have the career Grand Slam of all four professional majors. Only three of them knew what they were playing for — Gary Player (1965), Jack Nicklaus (1966) and Tiger Woods (2000).

None of them had to wait longer than three years to get the final leg.

Arnold Palmer, who cooked up the notion of the modern Grand Slam in 1960, played the PGA Championship 34 times without ever winning to complete the slam. Tom Watson had 24 cracks at the PGA Championship and ended his career one leg short of a slam.

Phil Mickelson gets one more try at the U.S. Open.

McIlroy is playing the Masters for the 17th time. Only one player has made more appearances before finally wearing the green jacket — Sergio Garcia on his 19th try.

Perhaps more surprising than McIlroy not already being a Masters champion is how few chances he has had since he lost that four-shot lead with an 80 in the final round in 2011.

He was runner-up in 2022, but that was the year Scottie Scheffler blew everyone away and walked up the 18th fairway with a five-shot lead. He was in the last group with Patrick Reed in 2018 and had practically all of Augusta National throwing their support behind him. McIlroy shot 74. Reed won the Masters.

No, this is not just another tournament, and McIlroy knows it.

When he casually mentioned his elbow had been bothering him at the Houston Open two weeks ago, speculation began that it was a ploy to take pressure off himself.

One of the websites tracking private planes noticed McIlroy's plane had gone to Augusta on the way home from Houston. Based on the flight pattern, it almost looked as though McIlroy was going to Florida when he told the pilot, “Hang on, veer left." Or it could have been the weather.

McIlroy knows it's important because he thinks back to the years when perhaps he didn't treat the Masters or any other major with enough importance. Too many expectations. Too many close calls. Too much angst.

He was leaving The Players Championship after his playoff victory when he stopped by the Golf Channel set for an interview and said of those years of mediocrity, “You have to be willing to get your heart broken, and I think I went through a few years of my career where I wasn’t willing to put myself out there. But I feel like I've figured it out."

What did he learn? Mainly that it's OK to feel the sting of major disappointment, and there has been plenty of that lately to remind him.

He couldn't buy a putt at St. Andrews in 2022. He missed two short ones down the stretch at the U.S. Open last year. He couldn't catch Wyndham Clark in the U.S. Open the year before. They all hurt, and McIlroy famously said after finishing one shot behind Clark, “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”

He hopes it was only a figure of speech.

“Instinctually as human beings we hold back sometimes because of the fear of getting hurt, whether that’s a conscious decision or subconscious decision,” he said Tuesday. "And I think I was doing that on the golf course a little bit for a few years.

“But I think once you go through that, once you go through those heartbreaks, as I call them, you get to a place where you remember how it feels and you wake up the next day and you’re like, ‘Yeah, life goes on, it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.’”

The sun rose over Pinehurst last year, casting light on his tire tracks when he peeled out of the gravel parking lot. That one hurt as much as any.

And now he's back for more, the expectations higher than ever, the prize never more clear.

McIlroy is an avid reader and said he now has brought fiction into his world. He's reading a John Grisham novel.

“The Reckoning,” he said with a smile. “It's got off to a pretty good start.”