AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | After all the hugs, all the cheers and all the tears, red-eyed Rory McIlroy leaned his head back early Sunday evening in the shadow of the Augusta National clubhouse, ran a hand through his bushy hair and, ever the gentleman, politely excused himself.
“I’ve got to go get a green jacket,” McIlroy said, a measure of disbelief in his voice as the echoes of an unforgettable Masters afternoon floated through the pristine April air and the precious piece of clothing his wardrobe lacked awaited him.
It was a monumental moment and a monumental Masters, a long-awaited victory for the game’s most popular player whose star-crossed chase to complete the career Grand Slam – or just win another major championship – had been consuming, not just for him but for the game itself.
... over the course of a cloudless Sunday afternoon, this Masters shouldered its way among the most dramatic and soul-touching of them all – because of McIlroy.
When McIlroy holed his 3-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole to beat Justin Rose, joining Gene Sarazen, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods as the only players to win all four major championships, he fell to his knees on the 18th green and sobbed, the emotion he’s sometimes hidden and sometimes shared pouring out of him like an open fire hose.
He wasn’t the only one crying.
It was cathartic and history-making at the same time and over the course of a cloudless Sunday afternoon, this Masters shouldered its way among the most dramatic and soul-touching of them all – because of McIlroy.
There was Nicklaus in 1986. Tiger in 1997 and again in 2019. And, now, there is McIlroy in 2025.
So much was invested and so much happened, going back to McIlroy’s sputtering double bogey-speckled finish on Thursday through Sunday’s carnival ride of emotional twists and turns, that the full impact of McIlroy’s victory – which he seemed intent on letting slip away more than once – can be fully measured.
It was classically McIlroy, both brilliant and gasp-inducing, theatrical to the extreme. One moment McIlroy seemed to be walking on the clouds, another moment it was if he’d stepped through the looking glass.
Last Tuesday night, McIlroy was invited to Augusta National for dinner with some members. The only other golfer to join them was Justin Rose.
Fourteen years ago, McIlroy brought a four-stroke lead into Sunday at Augusta and shot 80, the first thread in a story that practically haunted him. McIlroy played with Ángel Cabrera that day and when he opened his locker Sunday morning, McIlroy found an encouraging note from Cabrera.
Call it karma. Call it fate. Call it the Masters.
Every year it had been the same narrative. Is this the year? What’s holding Rory back? What if he never wins the Masters? What if he never wins another major?
When he fell to his knees while the hosannas thundered around him, McIlroy had come through his own personal reckoning.
“It was all relief,” he said. “There wasn’t much joy. It was all relief. The joy came pretty soon after that.”
The record will show that Rose, who shot 66 and birdied the 72nd hole to finish at 11-under-par 277, pushed McIlroy to extra holes and that Bryson DeChambeau, who left a scar on McIlroy at the U.S. Open a year ago, had been unable to solve his own equation, while Patrick Reed, Ludvig Åberg and Scottie Scheffler played around the edges of a raw, raging afternoon.
McIlroy’s battle, however, was internal, where the angels and demons live. He has heard for years how he seems destined to win the Masters and forever wear his green jacket around the club every April.
On Wednesday morning, Nicklaus, Player and Tom Watson said it all over again. If history has proven anything, it’s that some things can’t be talked into existence.
“You’ve had Jack, Gary, Tom, Tiger, you name it, come through here, and all say that I’ll win the Masters one day. That’s a hard load to carry, it is. It really is,” McIlroy said.
The unspoken part was the idea that perhaps the world was waiting for something that was never going to happen. McIlroy understood that winning any major, much less the Masters, would be difficult but he may not have imagined he would make it this difficult on himself.
“The battle today was with myself,” McIlroy said.
He woke up nervous and the jitters never left him. He didn’t want to eat. His legs felt rubbery. Few days dawn with the chance to make history and McIlroy knew Sunday was a rare chance.
The two-stroke lead he took to the first tee was gone when he and playing partner DeChambeau walked to the second tee, the cost of a nervous double bogey that strangely calmed McIlroy.
By the third tee, McIlroy was one behind.
“It’s gone, just like that,” a fan said, watching McIlroy play the third. “He just choked away the lead.”
“There was points on the back nine today, I thought, you know, have I let this slip again?”
RORY McILROY
The anticipation that had been blowing in the gentle breeze had been replaced by uneasiness. Two birdies put McIlroy back ahead but his scorecard pinballed back and forth.
At the par-4 11th, his second shot through the trees hung on the bank when it might have rolled into the water. Sometimes it’s as simple as getting the right break at the right time.
“I’ve rode my luck all week. And again, I think with the things that I’ve had to endure over the last few years, I think I deserved it,” McIlroy said.
He made four double bogeys during the week and still won the Masters, something no player had ever done. The most crushing double came Sunday at the par-5 13th, where McIlroy went against his DNA and played the hole conservatively, only to flare an embarrassingly weak wedge shot into the creek.
McIlroy had been four ahead walking off the 12th green and by the time he pegged up his golf ball at No. 14, he was tied with Rose.
If there was a moment for McIlroy to surrender to fate, that was it.
“There was points on the back nine today, I thought, you know, have I let this slip again?” McIlroy admitted.
Instead, after another bogey at 14 that briefly dropped him behind Rose, he played a rainbow-like 7-iron into the par-5 15th green, much like the one that led to an eagle on Saturday.
McIlroy missed the eagle putt at 15 but on a hole with a bridge named for Sarazen, it seemed like he could walk on water there. But an 18th hole bogey, after a brilliant birdie at 17 to take the lead, extended the drama.
Then it was over, a short birdie putt on the first extra hole handing Rose his second playoff loss in the Masters and recasting McIlroy’s place in the game.
“For him, it’s been everything,” said Shane Lowry, who gave his friend a massive bear hug after the victory. “He might not say it but for him it’s been everything over the last 10 years. It’s huge.”
In 2022, McIlroy watched Cam Smith beat him to win the Open Championship at the Old Course at St Andrews on a Sunday when McIlroy two-putted all 18 greens.
Wyndham Clark beat him by a stroke at the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club and the memory of his potentially devastating loss to DeChambeau in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst last year was part of Sunday’s backdrop at Augusta.
There is a texture, a depth and a connection to McIlroy that sets him apart. It is not just his record – which now includes the career Grand Slam – that separates him.
“It’s the best day of my golfing life,” McIlroy said. “I’m very proud of myself. I’m proud of never giving up. I’m proud of how I kept coming back and dusting myself off and not letting the disappointments really get to me.
“Talking about that eternal optimist again. Yeah, very proud.”
And that green jacket, size 38 regular, looked like it had been waiting for McIlroy for years.
E-MAIL RON
TOP: Joel Marklund, augusta national