Masters Results 2012: Rory McIlroy and Golfers Who Must Learn from Mistakes

The 2012 Masters have concluded and golfers like Rory McIlroy must learn from their errors if they want to be competitive in the remaining three majors this year and possibly capture a green jacket at Augusta in 2013.

Whether it was their poor driving, short-game errors or mental mistakes, these men are good enough to win big tournaments and need to take some lessons from their Masters failure.

Tiger Woods

Woods has never finished a Masters as poorly as he did this year. The 74 he shot on Sunday capped off his plus-5 tournament performance and a T-41 finish on a horrible note.

Tiger was the favorite going into the event after winning at Bay Hill, but he simply could not do anything right on his drives—although his putting was excellent.

If Woods was able to put himself in position to make those putts a stroke or two earlier, he may have lived up to his billing as a 4-to-1 favorite. 

Phil Mickelson

Lefty had not one, but two triple bogeys and still finished in a tie for third place. If Lefty was able to control himself during those two fateful holes and neutralize the damage, he would have possibly won his fourth green jacket.

Instead, he lost his composure and the tournament.

Phil needs to learn when to just lay up and play for a bogey or double bogey instead of taking the risky shot and failing.

Rory McIlroy

McIlroy may never have a collapse as epic as his 2011 weekend at Augusta, but he didn’t do anything to prove he is capable of winning this tournament in 2012.

He was just a stroke off the lead going into the weekend, but had an extremely poor Saturday that just led to a meltdown on Sunday.

Rory must focus on mental composure late in tournaments and has a chance to repeat as U.S. Open champ in June if he can do that.