Augusta, United States: Rory McIlroy will put his heart on the line once more at the Masters, hoping resilience from past agonies pays off with a green jacket and a career Grand Slam.

The four-time major winner from Northern Ireland arrived at Augusta National this week after wins at Pebble Beach and The Players Championship, the first time he has won twice in a year before the Masters.

The world number two, who said his sore elbow feels well after treatment last week, is again tuning out talk about winning the only major to elude him. “It´s just narratives. It´s noise. It´s just trying to block out that noise as much as possible,” McIlroy said. “There´s a lot of anticipation and buildup coming into this tournament each and every year, but I just have to keep my head down and focus on my job.”

After two prior trips to Augusta for practice rounds, that means watching “Bridgerton” with his wife and reading “The Reckoning” by John Grisham rather than dwelling on how he blew a four-stroke lead on Sunday at the 2011 Masters or settled for being a major runner-up each of the past three years — including a last-hole loss to Bryson DeChambeau at last year´s US Open.

“Over the course of my career I think I´ve showed quite a lot of resilience from setbacks, and I feel like I´ve done the same again, especially post-June last year and the golf that I´ve played since then, and it´s something that I´m really proud of,” McIlroy said.

“You have setbacks and you have disappointments, but as long as you can learn from them and move forward and try to put those learnings into practice I feel like is very important. “You sort of just learn to roll with the punches, the good times, the bad times, knowing if you do the right work and you practice the right way, that those disappointments will turn into good times again pretty soon.”

McIlroy, 35, hasn´t won a major since 2014 and admits at times he has not fully thrown himself at the challenge, unwilling to risk the heartbreak of defeat for the possible joy of victory. “It´s a self-preservation mechanism,” McIlroy said. “It´s just more of a thing where you´re trying to not put 100% of yourself out there because of that.