Rory McIlroy Finally, Finally Did It
Eleven years after his last major win, 14 years after a Masters he should have won, and 16 years after his first tournament at Augusta National, McIlroy finally completed his career Grand Slam—and made the wider golfing world plenty emotional in the process
It happened! It happened. So many times it seemed like it never would. There was the 0-for-38 streak in major tournaments dating back to 2014. The heartbreak at the U.S. Open in 2023 and 2024. The double bogeys at holes 15 and 17 during Thursday’s opening round of the Masters. The opening double bogey on Sunday, followed by the shocking double bogey at the par-5 13th, which turned a seeming runaway victory into a whole new ballgame.
The Rory McIlroy Roller Coaster. It’s been impacting golf fans—and McIlroy himself—for decades now. But finally, after an exciting, excruciating, and ultimately exhilarating Sunday at Augusta National, one of the game’s greats finally completed the career Grand Slam and vanquished his own history by packing 11 years’ worth of crushing near misses and bad beats into a cathartic sudden-death playoff victory over Englishman Justin Rose. Just how cathartic was this round? For so many years, McIlroy had been a dominant force in the golf world but somehow failed to get it done at the majors. Since 2014, he’d had runner-up showings in four majors, and 21 times he finished in the top 10. Recently, he won the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, in a playoff, in what is somewhat tackily regarded as golf's "fifth major." But until Sunday, genuine major championship glory had eluded him at length.
Would you like to read the lede I had initially written and sent to my editor at 4:12 p.m., when McIlroy was four shots clear of the rest of the field and stepping up to the par-5 13th? I would have loved to share that with you. Would you like to read the second lede I wrote after a magnificent birdie at the 17th hole gave McIlroy a one-stroke lead, meaning he only needed to make par from the fairway on 18 to win in regulation? I would have loved to share that as well, but a loose approach shot flew into the bunker and ultimately led to a sloppy bogey. It was a day of stops and starts for all of us—and a full weekend of such for McIlroy.
Across all four days of the Masters, the Augusta patrons chanted: “Rory, Rory, Rory!” They cheered for him when he seemed to lose the tournament on Thursday, recording double bogeys on the 15th and 17th holes and finishing the day seven strokes behind Rose, the leader. They lauded McIlroy when he went wild on his first nine holes on Saturday, carding a white-hot 32 en route to a second consecutive 66—which gave him a two-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau heading into the final round. They cheered him on through a double bogey on the first hole on Sunday, when it seemed like he may be falling apart in yet another major, as he had at last year's U.S. Open at Pinehurst when he missed two 4-foot putts within the last three holes and lost that championship to DeChambeau. And they rallied behind him on holes three and four, where he recorded back-to-back birdies, and holes nine and 10, when he re-extended his lead to four and looked set to cruise through the back nine.
I don't know if it's the solitude or the myopia, but there is something about golf that seems to curate genius, madness, and love. And all of those came out of McIlroy across his final 10 holes on Sunday. With the tournament seemingly well in hand, McIlroy shanked his third shot on the par-5 13th into the water. It was such a strange occurrence—and given the context and his history, perhaps one of the worst shots of his career. But then, he went on to hit some of the best shots of his career at the 15th and the 17th holes in regulation, and at the 18th in the playoff. “Rory, Rory, Rory!” the patrons carried on, and as CBS announcer Jim Nantz rightly pointed out, “The chant is global.” Could anyone who ever had a heart really stand to see him blow it again? By the last riveting hour of the final round, you knew this would end in tears, one way or the other.
With its fathoms-deep reservoir of nostalgia and annual rite-of-spring gravity, the Masters is essentially optimized for massive emotional payloads. But on the short list of the most viscerally moving scenes the tournament has ever created, Sunday’s result is rivaled only by the restoration victories of Jack Nicklaus in 1986, when the 46-year-old lion in winter shot 30 on the back nine to hold off Greg Norman; and Tiger Woods in 2019, when he returned from a seemingly endless raft of scandal and injury to climb golf’s highest height one more time. There are a number of reasons why golf fans feel so strongly about McIlroy. He’s sweet-natured but certainly no pushover. He’s friendly with the press and with galleries around the world, but he’s not afraid to snatch a phone from a nattering jerk who lacks the common sense to shut his mouth while someone’s on the tee. We also treasure him not only for his glorious game but for his passion, character, and dignity. He’s a little like Tiger, too—people forget that 20 years ago, when Woods holed that majestic chip shot on 16 to go two strokes up on Chris DiMarco, he then proceeded to bogey 17 and 18, forcing a playoff that he eventually won. Sunday felt like that too. For every thrill, there was a reversal—until the very end.
The general consensus in the golf world is that winning a major championship takes a steady hand. McIlroy has often been brilliant over the course of his career. But a steady hand? You could not ascribe that to him in any of his major appearances over the last 11 years—or even on Sunday. His back nine on Sunday went: birdie, bogey, par, double bogey, bogey, birdie, par, birdie, bogey. That’s what we call “a lot of action” on your scorecard. Were you not entertained?
McIlroy has now cried very publicly at Augusta National two times. The first was in 2011, when, after holding a four-shot lead to begin Sunday, he made triple bogey on the 10th, bogey on the 11th, and double bogey on the 12th, ending his chances at a win. He was 21 years old. Sunday was the second time, when the now-35-year-old—who’s a husband and a father and an occasional lightning rod for his willingness to speak truth to power in golf’s ongoing civil war—fell on his knees after making the winning putt.
"I’m absolutely honored, thrilled, and so proud to be able to call myself a Masters champion,” McIlroy said during his confessional post-victory interview. "It was 14 years in the making, from going out with a four-shot lead in 2011, feeling like I could have got it done there.
"There was a lot of pent-up emotion that came out on the 18th green,” he continued. “A moment like that makes all the years and close calls worth it.”
So what now? Mission accomplished. Rory McIlroy is now one of six men ever to win the career Grand Slam. The others are Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. He’s at the top of his game and just got a gigantic monkey off his back. In Butler Cabin after the round, the defending champion Scottie Scheffler, who played well and finished a highly respectable fourth on Sunday, awkwardly draped an ill-fitting green jacket over McIlroy’s broad shoulders. Shoulders that have carried so much. Rory cried again. I cried too.