Can Rory McIlroy win back-to-back Masters titles? Jack Nicklaus will tell you that McIlroy’s already done the hardest part. “Well, the key is to win two years in a row,” Nicklaus said with a grin after hitting the honorary tee shot on Thursday morning, “and I think Rory’s the only one that’s got a chance to do that this year.” Nicklaus did it back in 1965 and ’66. “Rory’s talented enough,” he added. “Now he’s got that monkey off his back, I think he has a very, very good chance to repeat.”

In his first 17 years coming here, McIlroy played Augusta National just about every which way he could think of: he’s attacked it, endured it, and overthought it, played it carelessly, played it cautiously, and played it consideredly. The one thing we had never seen was how he would go about it once he had finally won the thing. Turns out the answer is he would do it with a big grin and a hell of a swing. His very first shot at Augusta as Masters champion, at 10.30am on a bright, blue and dry Augusta morning, was a whistling 332-yard drive that carried the entire hill and shot off into the gallery over the left side of the fairway.

Earlier in the week McIlroy said he’d picked out one or two spots around the course where he felt he could be a little more aggressive off the tee. He wasn’t kidding. The one or two spots he was thinking of were the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and every other hole around here that requires a driver.

Back in 2011, Phil Mickelson told McIlroy that the reason he loved playing Augusta was that he felt he could be so aggressive here. McIlroy said he never really understood what Mickelson meant. “I remember thinking: ‘I feel the opposite,’” McIlroy explained. “I feel I can’t be aggressive here because there’s so many bad places to miss.”

In recent years he’s been so scared of blowing his chances by making the big miss that at times it was like watching a man try to carry a Ming vase across a wet marble floor. Well, now he’s made it to the other side, he finally understands what Mickelson meant all those years ago. “Phil has so much faith in his short game that if he does miss an approach shot by being aggressive, he still feels he can get that ball up and down.”

Which was pretty much how McIlroy played on Thursday. At the 2nd, McIlroy hit one 377 yards well over the big fairway bunker and into the pine straw beyond it; at the 8th he clobbered one 361 yards into the second cut at the foot of the hill – “You see the flames coming off that thing?” the man standing next to me said as it went flying by. He didn’t hit a whole lot of fairways. It didn’t much matter. As he said himself: “If I’m going to hit five wood or three wood into the trees anyway, I may as well hit driver and get it close to the green.”

He did find a fairway at the 7th. Trouble was it was the fairway of the neighbouring 17th. No matter. He arrived a few moments later and stood over the ball, squinting, then smiling, as he sought a line back through the trees before he went striding off towards the green to measure out the yardage. Augusta was meant to be a problem-solver’s golf course and McIlroy’s near peerless ability to get himself into a fix is matched by his knack for getting back out of it again.

From that unpromising spot on the 17th fairway, he popped his second shot between the trees and down on to the bank to the far side of the 7th green, just 12 yards from the pin for a well-earned up-and-down par. It wasn’t paying off in birdies, but given the struggles his playing partner Cam Young was having around those same seven holes, which he covered in four over, even par suited McIlroy just fine. And another lesson of Augusta is that if you wait, the birdies will start to come soon enough. There was one at the long uphill 8th and then a whole flight of them at the 9th, 13th, 14th and 15th.

By the end of it all, McIlroy was five under and playing so well the only wonder was that it had taken him so long to win the thing in the first place.

Amazingly enough, the third member of their group, Mason Howell, was born the year McIlroy turned professional. Howell, 18, is a spindly, stoop-shouldered high‑school graduate, who qualified by winning the US Amateur Championship last year.

His high-school golf coach is carrying his bag for him this week. Packed in along with Howell’s own kit is an autographed ball McIlroy gave him when they met at the Tour Championship in 2016. Howell’s a hell of a player, and made it through the first three holes in even par before he picked up his first Masters scar by taking three putts from inside five feet at the 4th.

“Rory was one of my idols growing up, so it’ll be super special for me,” said Howell beforehand. “I just can’t ogle at his game too much.” Truth is, there are worse ways to spend your time when the sun’s out at Augusta and McIlroy’s playing like this.