A month after the Masters, don't worry about McIlroy

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Rory McIlroy is fine, thank you.

Played nine holes Monday. Played a little soccer later that night with the boys.

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"Good fun,'' he said.

But his manager Stuart Cage? Might want to ask him about that strained hamstring, he said with a grin.

With that, McIlroy was off and running. Through a gamut of questions, inquisitions, light-hearted jabs and ... well, pretty much the normal stuff a defending champion deals with the next time that tournament rolls around. Emphasis on pretty much.

Sitting there Tuesday morning, he wasn't just the defending champion at this week's Wells Fargo Championship. Not just the mop-top kid who made our eyes pop with a closing 62 and a win at Quail Hollow in 2010.

He was also the guy who had the 2011 Masters by the throat at the turn and ... let it get away. The kid who propped his head on the shaft of his club at the 10th hole when everything started to unravel. The kid we all felt for. The one whose gut had to feel kicked in that Sunday a month ago when he patiently answered everyone's questions before heading down Magnolia Lane.

Before you ask, there was no sulking for this Ulster lad. He's some kind of resilient. Has been. Had to be when you consider he's been up and down and all around and, at the young age of 21, is the sixth-ranked player in the world.

He's put the house-hunting, pinball-with-the-trees moment at Augusta behind him. Picked himself back up after the back-nine meltdown, dusted himself off.

Stiff upper lip. Lesson learned. Press on. More majors in front of him. More chances.

Really. That 10th hole and the rest is history. Over it -- for the moment.

The questions, the video rewinds? Not so much.

He's sorted through the final day and realized he wasn't ready. There were weaknesses in his game, he wasn't as sharp mentally as he needed to be and he was rushing shots.

"For 63 holes I led the golf tournament, and it was just a bad back nine, which a very bad back nine that sort of took the tournament away from me, I suppose,'' he said. "But what can you do? There's three more majors this year and hopefully dozens more that I'll play in my career.''

So how long did it take to get over that?

"A couple days maybe,'' McIlroy said. "I mean, I'm fine. I mean, it was a great chance to win a first major, but it's golf. It's only golf at the end of the day. No one died. Very happy with my life, very happy with what's going on, very happy with my game. You know, so I'm looking forward to this week."

Truth told, he was already looking forward to getting back onto the course the week after the Masters and did -- at the Maybank Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur where he got into contention and finished third.

As for immediate perspective that Sunday night? McIlroy tweeted a picture of himself and Masters champ Charl Schwartzel -- in his jacket -- from the cabin of their private plane.

A few days later, he was playing the first two rounds and chatting with Martin Kaymer, who came from behind to win the 2010 PGA Championship in a playoff at Whistling Straits. There was pressure, Kaymer said, just totally different from what McIlroy faced.

"I think for me the biggest advantage was that I didn't have to sleep over it, I didn't have to listen to you guys on The Golf Channel Saturday night about how big it would be and all the pressure that you will approach the next day. I didn't have to deal with that,'' Kaymer said.

"You know, he's only 21 years old, and what people, I think, it's easy for people to forget, as well, he's so young and the stuff that he did, the way he plays golf, it's been unbelievable. Yeah, he didn't play well the last round, but that happens. He will win plenty of tournaments, maybe a few majors, but that was probably the biggest difference, that I didn't have to deal with that at the PGA."

McIlroy did. Still does. And will through next year's Masters. Maybe beyond.

Not surprisingly, the best advice he has gotten came from Greg Norman, who had more than his share of major meltdowns and major surprises during his career. Norman, who led by six going into the final round of the 1996 Masters, melted down and lost to Nick Faldo, called him in Malaysia.

His advice was simple and to the point -- "Don't listen to you guys."

"He sort of just said to me, don't from now on, don't read golf magazines, don't pick up papers, don't watch The Golf Channel,'' McIlroy said. "But it's hard not to. Obviously you want to keep up to date with what's going on. But you can't let other people sort of influence what you're thinking and what you should do.

"I've taken my own views from what happened a few weeks ago and moved on, and that's the most important thing.''

As he worked his way through questions about everything from young American players to next week's PLAYERS Championship to the keys to winning at Quail Hollow -- patience, score on the par-5s -- to who he was rooting for in the 1996 Masters.

The answer to the latter? "Faldo,'' he said. "He was one of my idols growing up."

Now, McIlroy is working his way into that role. He's one of those youngest of young guns who has talent, charisma and the a brilliant future. Today's kids are already looking up to him.

What do they see? Someone who goes for it. Someone who has no fear. Someone who is determined to learn from mistakes and meltdowns. Someone who bends, but doesn't break.

"Obviously it was tough to explain what happened to him on (Masters) Sunday, but what I said earlier, he's 21 years old,'' Kaymer said. "He's not out here since 15, 20 years, like Tiger (Woods), for example.''

In a way, that's a great thing. Think about being six or seven. You fell down, you got back up. No fear, just figuring out what went wrong and resolve that it wasn't going to happen again.

That's where McIlroy is today. At seven, he didn't have a thought or an opinion about what happened to Norman that day in 1996. What 7-year-old does, he chuckles.

But at 21? He understands. He empathizes. He knows he could have gone out last month and tried to shoot for a number at Augusta. Say 13 or 14 under. He didn't.

"Where at Augusta I was just trying to stay ahead of the field, which in hindsight probably wasn't a good thing,'' he said. " I just should have gone out and played my game, said, right, if I play well today I'm capable of shooting 65 around this golf course and winning by ten.

"But that's not the way it worked out, and that's experience. That's just learning to be in that position more often, and hopefully I'll be able to get myself in those positions more often in my career, and sooner or later it's going to happen where it finally clicks and I'm able to handle it, handle the whole thing a lot better and win."

Like we said, he's fine thank you. Just fine.

Melanie Hauser is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM and can be reached at melaniehauser@gmail.com. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR. Follow her on Twitter @melaniehauser.