AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | Masters history is filled with great duels and charges and collapses. With leaders making heroic shots ingrained in our collective memories and calamitous mistakes you can’t unsee. With moments that make you shout in wonder and cry out in anguish. With roars and groans.
In an historic 89th Masters Tournament, we had the rarest pleasure of all – seeing all of those things delivered by the same man on the same Sunday.
Rory McIlroy’s green-jacket triumph was the zaniest madcap adventure any champion has ever taken us on, filled with wonder and horror and terror and elation seemingly all at once. From day one he rose and fell and rose and soared until he found his way into the lead on Sunday. Then he fell and rose and soared and plummeted and rose and fell and finally rose again one last time above Justin Rose only to crumble to his knees in an emotional release of 11 years of pent-up frustration.
Making history isn’t easy, and McIlroy sure didn’t make it easy on himself. But as we all say when we steal a par from the jaws of double bogey, they don’t draw pictures on the scorecard. They don’t draw pictures on the green jacket, and this one is McIlroy’s forever and his place in the pantheon of golf’s major giants is secured.
It sure was something to see.
BIRDIE: Rory McIlroy. How does somebody who mis-hits the easiest little pitch on 13 into the creek or the wedge into a bunker when he absolutely has to hit it just anywhere on the green on 18 pull off those shots from the trees on 5 and 7 or the towering daggers under intense pressure he delivered on 15, 17 and 18 in the playoff? Rory is a wondrous riddle.
DOUBLE BOGEY: McIlroy. Craig Stadler won the 1982 Masters in spite of making three doubles during the week. McIlroy is the first to do it with four doubles – two Thursday and two more Sunday – that all seemed to signal failure that he refused to succumb to this time.
BIRDIE: Justin Rose. At 44 years old and nearly 12 years removed from winning the 2013 U.S. Open, Rose has now finished runner-up in consecutive majors and three times at the Masters. His brilliant 66 in spite of four bogeys on Sunday caught McIlroy. His 20-footer for birdie to end regulation was clutch, but his short miss on 17 ultimately doomed him. Rose has now held at least a share of the Masters lead after 18 holes (2004, ’07, ’08, ’21 and ’25), 36 (2004, ’21 and ’25), 54 (2017) and 72 (2017 and ’25) without winning.
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