Rory McIlroy: 'Obviously there's memories'

The next time someone in the business of handling famous people wants to show their client how it's done in a press conference, they should get a tape of Rory McIlroy's 25-minute session in the Masters media room this morning.

He was charming, insightful, funny, self-deprecating, honest and more, talking about all that happened to him on Sunday last April when his golf world went kaboom. It could have been a testy session, one in which McIlroy waved off questions about what happened last year and tried to focus the conversation on this week.

Instead, he answered everything head on.

He joked about how close the white cabins to the left of the 10th tee now seem to be. He blushed when the phone in his pocket rang during the interview. "No phones at Augusta," he apologized. He talked about crying when he talked to his mother a day later.

He said he watched a replay of that Sunday and saw a guy looking at the ground with his shoulders hunched, the opposite of how he usually walks. He tried to be perfect and mean and it's not who he is.

Of course, he won the U.S. Open two months later and now he's here, one of the co-favorites along with Tiger Woods in this Masters.

"Every time you come back to this place, you just get excited," McIlroy said. "Obviously there's memories that come back and memories that you probably don't want... It's fine. I got that all out of the way and (I'm) just looking forward to this week."

McIlroy also confrmed he'll play in the Wells Fargo Championship next month. "Sure, of course," he said when asked if it's on his schedule.