Six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus won 18 Major titles, so when it comes to dealing with pressure, few golfers knew better how to turn pure talent into big wins and shrug off those horrible, crushing feeling that the coveted prize is going to slip through your fingers.

Rory McIlroy knows that better than anyone and even used some advice from the Golden Bear to win his first Major title, the 2011 US Open by a whopping eight strokes just ten weeks after blowing a four-shot lead in the Masters.

"It is almost as if you are told not to be that way, but I felt as if I needed to be a little bit more cocky and put a bit more pressure on myself to win because I felt as if I had the ability," McIlroy said at Congressional nine years ago. "That's basically what Jack said to me. You have got to put pressure on yourself because if you don't put pressure on yourself, then no-one else does."

McIlroy is still waiting to win that coveted jacket in Kelly green that was first worn by members in 1937 and first presented to the champion in 1949.

Open champion Shane Lowry would love nothing more than to don one of the most coveted prizes in sport next Sunday evening, but when considering the chances of players like McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau in the first November Masters, he brought back memories of Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello in the Martin Scorsese's Irish mob classic, 'The Departed'.

When it comes to the most coveted prizes in life, "No one gives it to you. You have to take it."

"You don't just turn up and win the Masters," Lowry said when asked if he was surprised that McIlroy has yet to complete the career grand slam by winning that elusive green jacket. "It's not that easy. There is so much pressure that comes with it. It is up there with one of the greatest prizes in sport. It is history. Everything that comes with winning that green jacket is just huge. You don't just turn up and win it.

"Rory was obviously very unlucky. He had a bad back nine in 2011, and the pressure might have got to him over the years thinking he might win one and this will probably be the first year that not many people will be talking about him a lot.

"You just don't rock up and win a green jacket and head back home. It is not that easy, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out."

The hype around DeChambeau has been such all season that Lowry is fed up being asked about the big-hitting "Mad Scientist", the distance debate and the facile argument that the favourite for the final major of the season won the US Open by six shots by merely bombing the rest of the field into submission at Winged Foot.

"Not that I am sick of it, but it is a bit annoying that every interview you do, or any time you talk to anyone you are asked about it," The Open champions said from the Houston Open. "It is weird because the only two tournaments he won he finished first and third in putting. I keep emphasising that to people.

"In the US Open, he was top five in strokes gained around the green and top three in putting. If I had those stats, I would have had a chance to win as well. It's not drive for show and putt for dough. It is not that simple. You still have to drive it well and what he's doing is a big advantage. Yeah, he is going to be able to whip it over the corner on 13 and hit wedge or nine iron in. But you have to hit it straight. Go left on 13 and you're hitting another one off the tee.

"He is still going to have to play well. A lot of the talk is that it is Bryson's to lose. But nobody turns up and just wins a Major. It just doesn't happen like that. Tiger was the best player in the world for what, 15 years? And how many Masters did he win, five since 1997? So even though Tiger was way better than everyone else, you don't just turn up and win. It will be interesting to see how it plays out."

The bookies rarely get things wildly wrong, and Lowry is 66/1 to win to the Masters, which sounds about right considering he's missed the cut three times out of four and had just one top ten to go with six missed cuts since the PGA Tour returned from the Covid-19 lockdown.

While, there have been flashes of brilliance, such as the rounds of 67 and 65 he shot to lead the BMW PGA at halfway, he's been consistently inconsistent, as evidenced by those weekend rounds of 74 and 73 at Wentworth.

It's little wonder that the Clara man is not shouting the odds about his chances heading into his fifth Masters. But he's not ruling himself out either, believing that if he can drive the ball well around the Cathedral of Pines, his iron play and short game is good enough to give him a chance of doing something special.

"Obviously, I love the place," he said. "I think it is an amazing place to go and play golf, but as I said, I haven't had any success around there at all really.

"I am hoping the change in the time of year will maybe do something different for me this year. Maybe something might change this year, and something might be different.

"I have never driven the ball well around there, which is strange because a lot of holes suit my shot shape. If I can drive it well around there, I feel I can do well. There will be a lot of emphasis on honing in my driver over the next few days, so I am ready."

Anyone who spent time around Lowry in the run-up to The Open last summer could see that he was in a great place mentally having played well in the RBC Heritage, the PGA Championship, the Canadian Open and the US Open.

This year, it's been far from smooth sailing, but Lowry knows that he is not far away and dares to dream that he can put the full package together when he needs it most.

"It's obviously been a strange year, and I am not one to sit here and make excuses about coronavirus," he conceded. "I felt like I had my game going well going into The Players, and when I came back out [after lockdown], I just struggled. I didn't have many good results, but it was nice to be leading in Wentworth again during the tournament and feel the heat of battle a little bit. I felt my game was really good at Shadow Creek but for [double bogeys on] the ninth hole [on Thursday and Friday], which really killed my momentum there. I feel my game is decent, and I am happy with it. I don't feel I am struggling with any one thing.

"For me, it is all about getting in the right place mentally because I really do feel like my game is in decent shape and I am out there hitting all the shots I want to hit. If I can get myself in the right frame of mind, which is normally what works for me, I can do something and play well."

Driving distance is not something that unduly worries Lowry, who averages 308 yards off the tee on the PGA to rank inside the top 50.

"You still have to putt well, you still have to chip well to win tournaments, and at the end of the day, we are all the best players in the world so I believe if I bring my A-game, I can compete with him," he said the DeChambeau factor, which is likely to be diminished on a long and soft Augusta National with heavy rain forecast for early in the week.

"For me, it is all about getting in the right place mentally because I really do feel like my game is in decent shape and I am out there hitting all the shots I want to hit. If I can get myself in the right frame of mind, which is normally what works for me, I can do something and play well."

As for the absence of patrons, Lowry admits that he misses the fans but believes if there's a venue where the excitement levels will be through the roof in complete silence, it's Augusta.

"It won't be hard to get up for it, but it will be strange without crowds," he said. "I have not enjoyed it as much without crowds. I just miss them. I miss the buzz around the place, and even here in Houston, it was nice to have a few people around creating a buzz, even if there were only 2,000 people.

"I have missed the crowds, and I do feel we missed them at the bigger events. The US PGA and US Open weren't the same, but Augusta is Augusta and Augusta is different to everywhere else so no matter who is there watching next week and what goes on, someone is going to end up with the green jacket. So everyone is going to be out there, especially me, fighting as hard as I can to get in contention and hopefully do something very special.

"Nobody is going to be talking about me going into the Masters. I think it plays into the hands of guys like Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy. The only person people are going to be talking about next week is Bryson, and he has only brought it on himself, and it is up to him to live with it. It will be interesting to see how it goes. It might go well for him. He might win next week, but as I say, you just don't turn up and win the Masters. It's not that easy.

"Looking where my iron play is at the minute if I drive the ball well I can do very well next week. If I play the par fives better than in previous years and drive the ball well, I can do something because I feel decent on the greens and my iron play feels good. But who knows. If I rock up and have the week of my life, can I win? Of course, I can. That's the carrot that's dangling there, and that's what gets me up in the morning.”