AUGUSTA — Rory McIlroy walked off the green and through the crowd chanting his name, and he kept looking up, like he was taking a hot shower after an impossibly long day. He had made far too many mistakes to win. But he hit far too many great shots to lose. You wanted Rory McIlroy to win the Masters? This is how Rory McIlroy wins the Masters.
Not one bit of what happened here would have made sense for any other golfer in the world. McIlroy needed 15 tries to complete the career Grand Slam: once each year from 2015 to 2024, and five more on Sunday. Every time he built a seemingly insurmountable lead, he dismounted from it.
Whether you think golf is the greatest game in the world or the most ridiculous, the 2025 Masters is your best argument. McIlroy made four double bogeys this week and still won. He built a four-stroke lead with eight holes to play. From there, he nearly found water on No. 11; hit an unthinkably atrocious wedge into the water on 13; hit an outrageous draw into the 15th green to give himself an eagle chance; missed putts of 11, 8, 6, 9 feet; hit an iron from 197 yards to kick-in range on 17; missed a 5-foot par putt to win; and finally, he gave himself a 4-foot birdie putt to beat Justin Rose in a playoff. McIlroy sank it. The line between art and obscenity has never been thinner.
McIlroy began his day atop the most magical leaderboard in golf, and he ended it on an even better one. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen, Rory McIlroy. Those are the only men to win the U.S. Open, the British, the PGA, and the Masters.
McIlroy had not won a major since 2014. He had been doubted, criticized, and written off a million times. This was his I-told-you-so moment, but what makes McIlroy so endearing is that he told nobody so.
He could have said he woke up sure he would win. Instead he said “I was unbelievably nervous this morning,” to the point where he could hardly bring himself to eat, and on the first tee, his legs felt “a little jelly-like.”
He could have said he never doubted himself. Instead he said, “There were points in the back nine today, I thought, ‘Have I let this slip again?’”
Then there was this extraordinarily honest admission: “I rode my luck all week.” McIlroy could have paid dearly for his tee shots on the 7th hole Saturday and the 5th, 7th and 14th holes Sunday, but he didn’t.
“Any time I hit it in the trees this week,” McIlroy said, “I had a gap.”
So many successful people are reluctant to admit they’re lucky, out of fear of diminishing their achievements. McIlroy understands that luck is part of life, and it is absolutely part of golf. Acknowledging this just makes it easier to be grateful.
He did get a little lucky this week. He also earned his green jacket a thousand times over. He understands both of those statements are accurate, and how lovely is that?
“It’s the best day of my golfing life,” McIlroy said. “I’m very proud of myself.”
McIlroy has every quality of an all-time great player except total self-absorption. McIlroy is perpetually conscious of the burden of talent. He heard Woods and Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus all say he would win the Masters one day, and he appreciated the support, but “that’s a hard load to carry.” Completing the career Grand Slam was always going to be hard for him, just as the Cubs finally winning the World Series was always going to be hard, and ending Cleveland’s title drought was always going to be hard. History is rarely made quietly.
After the third round, McIlroy described himself as “a momentum player,” but it is probably more accurate to call him an emotional one. His last shot often seems to affect his next one, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, and the effect is hard to predict. His first double bogey Thursday led to his second. But he said his double bogey to open the final round “sort of settled my nerves.”
Imagine how hard must have been for a self-described momentum player to win on a day when the entire tournament felt like a hallucinatory episode. It wasn’t just McIlroy. His playing partner, Bryson DeChambeau, began the day two strokes behind, took the outright lead on the second hole, then played the next 10 holes in five over par. Inexplicably, when DeChambeau arrived at his ball in the middle of the 15th fairway, he still had a chance to win. He hit his next shot in the water.
Patrick Reed looked around on 17, wondering where his ball went. It was in the cup for an eagle. Ludvig Åberg snuck up to 10 under with two holes to play, spurring the thought that a Ludvig Åberg win would be a totally reasonable conclusion to this Masters. He then hit a 31-foot birdie putt nine feet past the hole and tumbled all the way down to seventh place.
Then there was Rose, who did not make a single par for the final eight holes of the fourth round. He went birdie-birdie-birdie-bogey-birdie-birdie-bogey … and then, on the 18th hole, he hit his 20-foot birdie putt dead center for another birdie. Rose was heading to the clubhouse at 11 under, unless he got struck by lightning, and though there were no clouds in the sky, that seemed possible. It was that kind of day.
Naturally, when the playoff began, Rose made a routine par. McIlroy needed to hole a putt just like the one he should have holed a half hour earlier, to win a tournament he should have won 14 years ago. He knew it. He always knows it.
“My battle today was with my mind, and staying in the present,” he said. “It was a struggle, but I got over the line.”
When the last putt fell, so did McIlroy. Golf has dropped him to his knees far too often over the years. When he got up this time, he was the Masters champion.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Had Been Doubted, Criticized and Written Off, but Finally He’s a Masters Champion.