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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Augusta National Golf Club had once again brought Rory McIlroy to his knees.After easily the most emotionally draining day of his Masters career, McIlroy had nothing left. Doubled over, his elbows firmly planted into the bentgrass turf, head buried for what seemed like forever, McIlroy finally uncurled back to his knees and with fists clenched screamed toward the sky, a decade-plus of emotion pouring out of him.This time, though, he rose a champion.“It was all relief,” McIlroy said later, wearing that once elusive green jacket, a 38-regular and the final piece to the career Grand Slam earned Sunday evening via a playoff victory over Justin Rose.McIlroy is the sixth member of that exclusive club, joining Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. None of those legends had to wait more than three years for their final leg, let alone the 11 excruciating trips around the sun that McIlroy has had to carry this burden.
Since prevailing at the 2014 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, McIlroy has driven down Magnolia Lane with one question religiously waiting for him at the end of the 330-yard road: Is this the year? It didn’t help that McIlroy had already suffered the worst kind of heartbreak at Augusta National, coughing up a four-shot lead after three days with a final-nine 43 and closing 80. But gosh darn it if that baby-faced, curly-haired 21-year-old who hadn’t but a clue didn’t keep coming back for more. After all, as McIlroy said back then, “No one died.”If McIlroy, now 35, could go back in time, his only word of advice to that naïve kid would be to stay the course, through the five straight top-10s that started a few months before he captured the claret jug, the backdoored runner-up in 2022 and the devastating missed cuts around it, through the recent heartbreak in other majors, most notably St. Andrews in 2022 and last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst.All those years of never giving up led him here.McIlroy entered this week’s Masters playing some of the best golf of his career. He rebuilt his swing last fall, locking himself in a simulator room for three straight weeks and beating balls into a blank screen. Then he beat up on his peers, first at the DP World Tour Championship last November and more recently at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Players. Third on the PGA Tour in driving distance, second in strokes gained tee to green, 10th in putting; McIlroy was somewhat of a cheat code – one that many expected would finally unlock the door for McIlroy into Augusta National’s champions locker room.Nicklaus, Player and fellow honorary starter Tom Watson were all asked Thursday morning who they thought would win. McIlroy’s name was uttered three times.“You’ve had Jack, Gary, Tom, Tiger, you name it, come through here, and all say that I’ll win the Masters one day,” McIlroy said. “That’s a hard load to carry.”And so, McIlroy, like he’s done for over a decade has tried to block out the noise. The week after McIlroy collapsed at the 2011 Masters, he flew to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysian Open. It was there, in a hotel room, that he chatted over the phone with Greg Norman, who urged McIlroy to create a bubble during major weeks and not let outside voices influence his own thinking. These days, McIlroy leans on a small inner circle that includes sports psych Dr. Bob Rotella.It was Rotella who helped keep McIlroy optimistic after an opening, level-par 72, which was punctuated by double bogeys on two of his final four holes. McIlroy was already seven shots off Rose’s lead, but Rotella encouraged McIlroy to remain patient: Don’t push too hard, too early. After just one birdie on his opening nine Friday, McIlroy caught fire by playing his next 13 holes in 10 under. On Saturday, he started his round with six straight 3’s, a Masters first, and by that night, McIlroy sat at 12 under, two shots ahead of Bryson DeChambeau and four clear of his next closest competitor, Corey Conners. Rose, meanwhile, was a whopping seven back and surely no longer a factor.By most accounts, Sunday would be a battle between two heavyweights, and easily the two longest players in the field. In the hour before their 2:30 p.m. tee time, McIlroy and DeChambeau warmed up under perfect conditions, just two slots on the tournament practice range separating them, as they dialed in their irons and wedges, and launched 330-plus-yard drives out toward the media center. DeChambeau had been battling approach woes, yet his putter had saved him so far. McIlroy, though, was fighting something inside. Back in 2011, a teary-eyed McIlroy admitted, “Being in the lead and winning is not the same thing.” And his body still knew it.“I was unbelievably nervous this morning,” said McIlroy, who lugged that knot in his stomach to the first tee, where he promptly drove it into the right fairway bunker and made double bogey to erase his lead.“But that sort of calmed me down,” McIlroy added, “and I was able to bounce back and show that resilience that I’ve talked about a lot.”A quick straw poll taken of about 30 patrons following that final pairing showed a near split: 17 for McIlroy, 13 for DeChambeau. The two-time U.S. Open champion, whose last major title had come at the expense of McIlroy last summer, earned plenty of cheers when he took the lead with a two-putt birdie at the par-5 second. But nothing went right for DeChambeau after that. He hit over a thousand practice balls this week, tops in the field, just not the shots when they mattered most. He bogeyed Nos. 3 and 4 as part of a four-shot swing with McIlroy, who birdied both those holes, and eventually backed up to 7 under, where he tied for fifth after a closing 75.“If I had the golf swing that I had at Pinehurst, it would’ve been a whole different story,” DeChambeau said.When McIlroy canned a 7-footer for birdie at the par-4 ninth to take a four-shot lead, USGA president Fred Perpall, who is DeChambeau’s neighbor in the Bahamas and was seated in prime position behind the 10th tee box, stood up and high-fived the guy next to him. Perpall then watched as McIlroy conquered seemingly his final demon with a beautiful 3-wood into the fairway to set up another birdie, this time from 15 feet. McIlroy was on cruise control, that is until he wasn’t.That’s when luck kicked in, or in this case, out. McIlroy had caught a couple great breaks earlier in the day, at the par-4 fifth, when he fanned one into the pines only to discover he still had a gap to thread his approach through, and again at the par-4 seventh, where he defied his caddie Harry Diamond’s plea to play it safe and instead delivered arguably the shot of the day, a towering, 154-yard cut to 8 feet. So, when McIlroy’s 190-yard approach at the par-4 11th came up 30 yards short and then found one of the only flat spots along the water’s edge to stay dry, McIlroy sent another thank you in the direction of the golf gods.“I’ve rode my luck all week,” McIlroy said. “And again, I think with the things that I’ve had to endure over the last few years, I think I deserved it.”McIlroy walked off the 12th green with a four-shot lead, though now over Rose, who had just dropped to 9 under with four holes to play. Surely, nothing could ruin McIlroy’s coronation now. And yet, the one who first gained fame at age 9 by chipping balls into a washing machine on the “Gerry Kelly Show” decided to put this Masters into one more spin cycle.Back inside Augusta National’s sprawling clubhouse, Rose’s longtime agent, Mark Steinberg, who also reps Woods, was glued to a small television inside a quaint sitting area adjacent to the main grill room. He watched Rose birdie Nos. 15 and 16 to reach 11 under, then witnessed McIlroy double-bogey the par-5 13th by rinsing a wedge shot and pushing an 11-footer. The coverage on that screen was 20 seconds ahead of what the dozens of members and guests were watching next door, so when McIlroy doubled, Steinberg was already on his way to the bar to trade his Diet Coke for a vodka-cranberry when everybody became aware that Rose and McIlroy were shockingly co-leaders. (Ludvig Åberg would also briefly get to 10 under and tied at the top before closing bogey-triple.)No player had won a Masters after carding four double bogeys or worse, which made McIlroy’s bogey at No. 14 to lose the lead seem even more backbreaking. But even with Augusta National throwing everything imaginable at him, just at it had all these years, McIlroy just wouldn’t say die. He hard-hooked a 7-iron around some trees to 6 feet at the par-5 15th, though the two-putt birdie was disappointing, and followed with a dart to 9 feet at the par-3 16th, which featured the untraditional back-right pin in honor of Nicklaus’ 1975 win. If only McIlroy had putted like Nicklaus on this day.When McIlroy’s tee ball on No. 16 found the dance floor, club member John Carr, the son of the late, great Irish amateur golfer Joe Carr, was passing through the sitting area where Steinberg was sitting, now flanked by one of his employees. Carr said, “Great shot,” and then put his hand over his heart as he walked away. Rose had just failed to get up and down at the par-4 17th and a birdie here from McIlroy would stretch the lead back to two shots. Again, McIlroy whiffed, and to make matters worse, Rose, who didn’t look at a scoreboard until the last hole, poured in a lengthy birdie putt on No. 18 to shoot 66 and grab the clubhouse lead at 11 under.“Oh my god!” one person inside the grill room screamed when Rose’s putt dropped. Steinberg then headed outside to meet his guy, leaving his drink behind.By the time McIlroy stuffed his approach at the next, yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” as his 196-yard approach nestled up to 2 feet, former tournament marker Jeff Knox, who famously beat McIlroy in the third round of the 2014 Masters, had saddled up next to the television in the vicinity vacated by Steinberg. That tap-in got McIlroy back to where he started the day, at 12 under.McIlroy launched his drive at the finishing par-4 317 yards into the fairway, his ball stopping just a few yards from the bunker. At that moment, only 125 yards stood between McIlroy and the green jacket, if he could get the ball in the hole in three shots or fewer.Instead, McIlroy dunked his gap wedge in the right, greenside bunker and missed his 6-footer for par. McIlroy had told putting coach Brad Faxon on Sunday morning that he thought he’d need a 68 to win; turns out 73 was good enough for a playoff with Rose, who was coincidentally the only other player at a Tuesday night dinner that McIlroy attended with a few members.“Nine holes of Rory McIlroy’s career in a nutshell,” said Tommy Fleetwood, who had hung around to witness history, one way or another. It would either be McIlroy’s greatest achievement, or his greatest failure.“My battle today was with myself,” McIlroy said. “It wasn’t with anyone else.”As McIlroy headed toward the golf cart that would take he and Diamond back to the 18th tee box for sudden death, Diamond told his boss, “Well, Pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning.”McIlroy first met Diamond on the putting green at Holywood Golf Club in Northern Ireland when he was 7 years old. McIlroy got choked up Sunday night talking about Diamond, calling him the big brother he never had. Diamond was the best man in McIlroy’s wedding to wife, Erica, and in 2014, shortly after McIlroy won his fourth major, he took over his buddy’s bag. The quiet Diamond, who doesn’t do interviews, has taken a lot of flak over the years, perhaps none worse than the criticism he received after McIlroy’s Pinehurst collapse. McIlroy relentlessly defended Diamond, and this time credited Diamond with reframing his outlook heading into overtime against his fellow European Ryder Cupper.McIlroy’s response to Diamond: “Yeah, absolutely we would have.”In the playoff, McIlroy had nearly an identical yardage to what he left himself in regulation, only on his second try he fired one in there to 4 feet, following Rose, who hit a nice approach to about 15 feet.When Rose missed, all but clinching a second Masters playoff defeat, the thousands of patrons packed around the final green cheered prematurely for McIlroy. But they knew it was over, and seconds later they roared, both outside and inside the clubhouse, where even Knox raised his right fist in celebration. McIlroy’s closest confidant on Tour, Shane Lowry, despite having shot 81, burst out of the locker room and quickly out the door while shouting, “He doesn’t make it easy, does he?!”“It’s a bogey away from being the greatest round I’ve ever played,” Rose said. “But I was glad I was here on this green to witness him win the career grand slam.”It took a few minutes for McIlroy to collect himself, hug Diamond and Rose, and make it through the tunnel of patrons, who by now were chanting, “Rory! Rory! Rory!” He stopped at one point along the rope line to kiss Erica, and then he turned to his 4-year-old daughter, Poppy, and lifted her up into his arms for a long embrace. A few weeks ago, after McIlroy had won for a second time at TPC Sawgrass, Poppy asked him, “Daddy, are you famous?” McIlroy responded, “Depends on who you talk to.” Is there ever a doubt now?“I’ve said it a bunch of times, I think Rory is the best player of our generation,” Fleetwood said. “I don’t think he’s had to prove that for a while, but for him to have finally got this one … this was always going to come. So happy for him, and whatever he did today, Rory’s place in golf is secure, but this has just added another layer.”Added Lowry, who greeted McIlroy with the biggest hug of all, raising McIlroy off his feet: “This means everything to him. It’s all thinks about. It’s all he talks about. He always said to me he’d retire a happy man if he won the green jacket. I told Erica he can retire now.”The grounds were still buzzing when McIlroy walked out of Butler Cabin, defending champion and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler right behind him, ready to slip the most coveted piece of clothing in golf onto McIlroy. Patrons were hopping every few yards, just trying to catch a glimpse of McIlroy’s coronation as hundreds were still gathered around the practice green, site of the jacket ceremony.McIlroy got choked up when his victory speech turned to his family. He’d first been inspired by Woods’ 1997 Masters triumph, the first of five, which McIlroy watched from across the pond with his dad, Gerry, who worked three jobs to fund the early stages of his son’s budding golf career. Gerry and his wife, Rosie, were back in Northern Ireland, and McIlroy said he couldn’t wait to fly home to enjoy a part of this with them, perhaps as soon as next week.Finally, McIlroy looked at Poppy, who was seated nearby, and delivered this message directly to her: “Never give up on your dreams. Keep coming back, keep working hard, and if your put your mind to it, you can do anything.”Even if it takes 14 years.
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