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On the Tuesday of last year’s Masters, Rory McIlroy dined with Justin Rose in the clubhouse at Augusta. He arrived right around the time that all the guests at Scottie Scheffler’s champions dinner were having cocktails on the balcony. “I was pulling up Magnolia Lane,” McIlroy says. “And I’m like, well, do I go and park way over at the parking lot? Because I’m not going to park in the champions parking lot.’”

Not when there’s Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and everyone else looking down. “I didn’t want to get out and use a valet because they were going to see me and it was going to be weird. So I had this really awkward moment,” McIlroy says with a laugh. “Thankfully that was the last time that I needed to do that.”

Five days later, he came into the media centre for his victory press conference. “I’d like to start with a question myself,” McIlroy said then. “What are we all going to talk about next year?” The answer, it turned out, was his mum and dad and everything he owes them, his daughter, his caddie, the menu for his own champions dinner this Tuesday evening, the flowers around the grounds, shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages and kings, everything but the one thing he’s had to talk about here every year since he blew a four-shot lead in the final round back in 2011.

“For the past 17 years I just could not wait for the tournament to start,” McIlroy says. “And this year I wouldn’t care if it never did.” Which, he adds quickly, doesn’t mean that he feels “any less motivated to go out there and play well and try to win the tournament”, only that “he’s a lot more relaxed about it. It is so nice to walk around the property or be out on the golf course and, yeah, just not have that hanging over me, like it feels that it’s a big weight off my shoulders.” No one’s asking him when he’s going to get it done any more. Instead, everyone’s telling him he can win it back-to-back. “It’s nice, there’s a real positive connotation to it.”

McIlroy says that the “what if?” has become a “what now?” “I think the story as it relates to me is ‘what do I do from now onwards?’” he says. “What motivates me? What gets me going? What do I still want to achieve in the game? I think that’s the story. And there’s still a lot that I want to do. You think every time you achieve something or have success that you’ll be happy but then the goalposts move and they just keep nudging a little bit further and further out of reach. I felt like the career grand slam was my destination, and I got there, and then I realised it wasn’t the destination.”

McIlroy is 36 and he figures he has “another 10 good shots” at winning the tournament. He likes his chances here even better than he does in any of the three other majors. “When you’ve had the experiences that I’ve had around here, good and bad, I think that can stand to you. I feel like I’m still young, but I’m very experienced. I’ve been doing this for a long time. This is my 18th start and I just think that everything here is a little more predictable.

“You know the golf course, there’s subtle changes year after year, but the hole locations are always in similar spots – the more experience you have around this golf course, the better it is.”

Nobody knows how it will play out. Only three men, Woods, Nicklaus, and Nick Faldo, have ever won the tournament twice in succession. It’s more common for the defending champion to struggle because of all the distractions of the new duties. Either way, after waiting all these years, McIlroy is determined to make the most of it all. He is looking forward to the dinner and says he had put a lot of thought into the speech he will have to give, enjoyed turning up to support the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, and the Drive, Chip & Putt youth tournament. Most of all, he relished the chance to play the course with his father last Sunday.

“Every time I get to play golf with my dad, it’s a blessing,” McIlroy says. “We were able to win the Seminole Pro-Member this year, which is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. Hopefully that’s the most pressure I feel this year because he was riding me pretty hard the last few holes. But it was just an amazing experience to be out there the Sunday before the Masters together, to enjoy it and soak it all in, and I guess just to reminisce on the journey that we’ve been on. It’s a long way from Holywood, Northern Ireland.”