Rory McIlroy Details Changes Made To Augusta National After Recent Scouting Trip

Rory McIlroy is teeing it up in this week's Texas Children’s Houston Open, which will be his final start before next month's Masters, but before arriving in the Lonestar State, the four-time major winner made a quick stop at Augusta National to officially kickstart his prep for the year's first major championship.

McIlroy will be making his 16th career start at the Masters in a couple of weeks, meaning that he's more than familiar with the hallowed grounds, but Augusta National always makes changes to the course year after year.

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Speaking to the media prior to the start of this week's event in Houston, McIlroy detailed some of the changes he picked up on during his loop around Augusta National earlier in the week.

"I use those trips just to refamiliarize myself with the place, clubs off tees, looking to see if they changed any greens," McIlroy explained. "There's four greens that are new this year that they've redone. You just sort of, you have a look at those and see if there's any new hole positions they give you, stuff like that.

Apart from that, honestly for me, it's nice to play a practice round without people around and it sort of takes the pressure off the start of the week for me. There's a lot of obligations, there's big commitments whether it be from media or the Par-3 tournament on Wednesday."

While Augusta National keeps things fresh with planned renovations and changes, the club was forced into making some earlier in the year after Hurricane Helene ripped through the area, causing damage all across the grounds.

Augusta National and Masters chairman Fred Ridley said in January that the course had lost a number of trees. One tree in particular fell on the iconic Par 3 16th green during the storms, and McIlroy detailed how things are looking in that corner of the golf course.

"Yeah, the loss of a few trees is definitely noticeable, but in terms of like they've had to redo that green, but it's exactly the same as it was," McIlroy said of the 16th green. "Apart from maybe a few less shadows on the green late in the day because of a couple of trees that were lost, it's pretty much the same."

Augusta National announced in October that it had donated $5 million toward hurricane relief through the greater Augusta community. The club also made separate contributions to support the response and recovery efforts led by the American Red Cross and other local community partners.