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…
