‘I wish they didn’t say it’: How ‘burdened’ McIlroy finally banished demons of his own making
Rory McIlroy crumbled on to the sacred ground, his putter flying towards the Heavens, as the Gods of golf finally granted clemency to the Northern Irishman at Augusta National.
In edging Justin Rose in a playoff to conclude an extraordinary Masters, perhaps the greatest tournament played, McIlroy joined the immortals.
Relief, he said later, was his primary emotion of he lay sobbing as the world of golf celebrated the elevation of a champion to a legend.
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Gene Sarazen. Ben Hogan. Gary Player. Jack Nicklaus, who advised the 35-year-old on how to master the Masters at lunch last week. Tiger Woods. And now McIlroy in 2025. It is the most exclusive club in golf.
For all the adversity McIroy has endured, including the chance that went begging back at Augusta back in 2011 and the scar tissue that mounted from various traumas elsewhere, McIlroy has his green jacket and the career Grand Slam club has swelled to six.
Shortly after defending champion Scottie Scheffler helped him into the green jacket McIlroy most desperately wanted at Augusta on Sunday evening, tears welled in the eyes of the Northern Irishman once again.
“This is by far the greatest golf tournament in the world,” he said.
“I’m from a place where I might get criticised for saying that, but I go back to watching this tournament on the weekend with my father when I was seven and eight-years-old.
“Watching Tiger Woods do what he did in 1997, that was my inspiration to try to become what I am today and to think that I’m up here wearing one of those green jackets is, honestly, it’s a dream come true. My dreams have been made today.”
The legend had a message for his daughter Poppy, but it is a lesson for the world as well and one mates including Shane Lowry are already leaning into. Resilience is important. Believe in yourself and good things can happen.
“My family, my team, they’ve been on this journey with me the whole way through,” he said.
“They know the burden that I’ve carried to come here every year and try and try and try again.
“And the one thing I would say to my daughter, Poppy, who is sitting over there; ‘Never give up on your dreams. Never ever give up on your dreams.’”
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Nicklaus was among the immortals leading the roars for Rory.
As McIlroy was standing above the three foot putt to win the Masters in regulation, the Golden Bear had a sinking feeling and called out to his wife Barbara; “I don’t think he is going to make this.”
“That’s been his nemesis,” Nicklaus told the At The Masters program as reflections on McIlroy’s Masters success began.
But the 18-time major champion knew something more important. Irrespective of all the scar tissue, McIlroy kept presenting. He tried and tried and tried again. And if he kept putting himself in the position to win, no matter the heartbreak, it would happen for him.
“I’m delighted for Rory,” the Golden Bear said.
“He has had a lot of pressure on him. He has had the world on his shoulders. It was wonderful to see him win.”
Woods, too, was absent from Augusta as he recovers from injury, but this was a show he did not want to miss.
“Welcome to the club Rory McIlroy. Completing the grand slam at Augusta is something special,” he wrote.
“Your determination during this round, and this entire journey has shown through, and now you’re a part of history. Proud of you.”
This was an ascension long predicted by those greats, but as McIlroy later said, those expectations only added to the pressure he felt given his respect for those men.
“Jack, Gary, Tom (Watson), Tiger, you name it, (they have) come through here and said that I’ll win the Masters one day,” McIlroy said.
“That’s a hard load to carry. It is. It really is. These are idols of mine, and it’s very flattering that they all come up here and they believe in me, and they believe in my abilities to be able to win this tournament and achieve the Grand Slam and all that.
“But it doesn’t help. I wish they didn’t say it, but I think as the years have gone on, I’ve just become more accustomed to the noise that sort of surrounds my whole Masters’ week. I’ve become a little more comfortable with it.”
After his miracle on the 73rd hole, McIlory will never have to worry about that again.
A SUNDAY MATINEE TOO WILD FOR HOLLYWOOD
As McIlroy sobbed on the 18th green, it was said this was the Hollywood ending for the boy who grew up in a town called Holywood in Northern Ireland.
The emotion that followed as the superstar hugged his caddie Harry Diamond and embraced the most worthy of rivals in Rose before making the champions walk back to the clubhouse was emblematic of what one would see in a silver screen classic. It was a riveting postscript.
But here is the thing. Hollywood would have knocked back the script that unfolded on Sunday as unrealistic, too absurd, too dramatic to believe. The swings in this Sunday matinee seemed too incredible to believe.
Billed as Rory McIlroy versus Bryson DeChambeau prior to the final round, instead it became McIlroy against Augusta, against Rose, against golf’s gods. Against himself. Again and again.
McIlroy opened his locker prior to the round to find a note wishing him good fortune from Angel Cabrera, the 2009 champion with his own twisted tale who happened to be his partner back in 2011 when it all went wrong on the last day.
And good luck was what McIlroy needed at stages, even if he did finish off with the finest of flourishes.
“I didn’t make it easy today. I certainly didn’t make it easy. It was one of the toughest days I have ever had on a golf course,” he said.
DeChambeau bristled from the first tee, opting for mind games against a man who had wilted at Pinehurst last year when missing a sitter on the 18th to gift him the Open title.
By the second hole his two shot advantage had gone, with McIlroy scoring his third double-bogey for the round after the duel debacles on 15 and 17 on Thursday.
No man had scored three double-bogeys in a Masters and won. And this was a man who had let slip a four-shot lead coming into the last round at Augusta 14 long, long years ago.
But as the threat from “The Scientist” wilted, McIlroy kept the faith, saying later “you have to be an eternal optimist in this game.”
Amen to that. And by Amen Corner, when he birdied the 10th, the green jacket was his to lose once again, with daylight to second.
A bogey in 11 did not help but it could have been far worse, with fortune favouring him as his ball stopped just shy of Rae’s Creek.
“I rode my luck all week … and with the things I have had to endure over the years, I think I deserved it,” he said.
“I couldn’t see the ball on 11 but I heard the groan of the crowd as it was going towards the water.”
But it was the par 5 13th hole that shook the faith of everyone watching on.
McIlroy birdied Azalea on Thursday. On Friday he eagled the 503m monster. Another birdie followed on Saturday. With a hefty lead, he opted for a more conservative path on Sunday.
All was going well until he chunked a wedge into the water on the 13th and finished with a seven.
“I’ve never seen a golf tournament where I have seen so many good shots and so many bad shots and so many changes,” Nicklaus said.
“I mean, (he hit some) remarkable shots. I mean shots that you say, ‘I don’t know if I want to try that’. But he knocked them stone cold. And then he turns around and plays a shot like he played at 13. I’m sitting there saying, ‘What are you doing?’
“It was the right play. I mean, the only way he was going to lose the tournament is to put the ball in the water and do something dumb. Well, he waited one more shot to do that.”
Rose, the good friend who he dined with on the Tuesday preceding Masters, had roared back into contention after starting the day trailing by seven shots, matching his customary opening brilliance with a magnificent closing round that fell just shy of being one for the ages.
Ludvig Aberg was in contention as well, while Scheffler was circling with intent. After another bogey on 14, his hopes were fading.
Having relinquished the lead once again, McIlroy rebounded on the 15th, the hole where his initial surge on Thursday stalled when he chipped from off the green into the water.
On Saturday a stunning approach to the green led to his third and final eagle for the major. His shot on Sunday superseded it, with the commentator branding it “the shot of a lifetime”. But the eagle putt did not drop and nor did the birdie putt at 16.
If we are talking about movie scripts, this was a horror film McIlroy had endured too many times over the past decade.
At the British Open at St Andrews in 2022, Cameron Smith went on a back nine tear with his blade as McIlroy, with the crowd roaring him on around the famous Scottish course, instead left them groaning as his putter deserted him.
This reporter had a birds eye view as he stepped out of the scoring hut that year, having signed his card, and paused for a few moments with his hands on his head in disbelief, the disappointment of another near miss etched in the anguish on his face.
More recently, the pain he felt from Pinehurst last year as his major drought stretched beyond a decade after the agonising miss on 18 was, he said on Sunday night, just “awful”.
As McIlroy walked from the 15th, he gave a lingering look back towards the scoreboard. Surely it would not happen again.
“There’s been a few. It’s hard, because I’ve played so much good golf,” he said.
“St Andrews was a tough one to take because you only get a few opportunities there … during the course of your career. And the US Open last year was awful.
“The losses are hard. (But) again, I’m just so proud of myself that I keep coming back and putting myself in positions to win these championships.”
And he did so once again with an exceptional approach from 168 metres on the 17th that enabled him to birdie the hole and move one in front of Rose, who had finished at 11-under.
McIlroy could not have played the 18th any better … until the putt to win the green jacket.
The gallery minutes earlier had been chanting “Rory. Rory. Rory.” Now they and everyone watching around the world was transfixed.
McIlroy was putting to win the Masters. He was putting to join the all-time greats. He was putting to lift the weight of the world from his shoulders. And he missed. That sinking feeling Nicklaus spoke of proved correct.
It felt like a dagger to the heart.
THE QUIET WORD THAT STEELED McILROY FOR ONE LAST ROAR
McIlroy became emotional once again when noting his mate Harry Diamond had copped a world of crap at different stages during his eight-year tenure carrying the 35-year-old’s bag.
As Rose finalised his preparation on the driving range, Harry offered advice dripping in diamonds to his boyhood mate that helped McIlroy restore his focus and faith in himself.
“After scoring, Harry and I were walking to the golf cart to bring us back to the 18th tee and he said to me, ‘Well … we would have taken this on Monday morning,’” he said.
“Absolutely, we would have. So that was an easy reset. He basically said to me, ‘Look, you would have given your right arm to be in a playoff at the start of the week.’ So that sort of reframed it a little bit for me.
“Again, I just kept telling myself, just make the same swing you made in regulation. And I had a great drive up there. And … the rest is history.”
For all the pressure on them after four rounds of exalting highs and dips that could have proved devastating, McIlroy and Rose stepped up to the 18th for one last roll of the dice.
McIlroy’s history is extensive. But Rose had endured his own heartbreak at Augusta, having lost to Sergio Garcia in sudden-death territory back in 2017.
A US Open champion in 2013, only last year the 44-year-old put himself through qualifying school for the British Open.
After earning a spot, he produced a superb performance at Troon to finish in a tie for second behind Xander Schauffele, which booked him another chance at the Masters.
Both men rose to the occasion and were superb from tee to green. But where McIlroy’s approach sucked back down the slope to an ideal position, Rose’s stayed high.
When the Englishman’s bid for birdie slid narrowly by, the green jacket was once again McIlroy’s to win. And as his ball dipped into the centre-left of the hole, pandemonium unfolded at Augusta.
McIlroy’s reaction is one of the most emotional golf has seen. It was, truly, wonderful.
The first man he hugged was his caddie, to whom he attributed the highest of praise.
“I’ve known Harry since I was seven-years-old. I met him on the putting green at Hollywood Golf Club. We’ve had so many good times together,” he said.
“He’s been like a big brother to me the whole way through my life and to be able to share this with him, after all the close calls that we’ve had, all the crap that he’s had to take from people that don’t know anything about the game, this one is just as much his as it is mine.
“He’s a massive part of what I do and I couldn’t think of anyone better to share it with than him.”
The second person to embrace him was Rose, who acted with dignity. It was the warmest of congratulations from a man who has now finished runner-up at Augusta three times.
“It’s so ironic how these things happen,” McIlroy said.
“We were invited to a dinner by a few members of the club on Tuesday night and we were the only two players at that table and we are the ones that ended up being in the playoff.
“He’s a great champion. He has displayed so much grace throughout his career. And I remember watching the playoff in ‘17 when he went up against Sergio and that didn’t quite go his way either.
“But he’s had a phenomenal record around here and I feel for him a little bit because he’s been so close (and) he’s a good friend. Hopefully he has a few more opportunities.”
The celebratory parade was a cavalcade of hugs and handshakes and embraces and smile swapped with family, dignitaries and friends.
It is telling that among those who waited to congratulate McIlroy were his Ryder Cup teammates Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood, who were both thrilled for their mate.
“He always said to me he’d retire a happy man if he won the green jacket, so I told him he can retire now,” Lowry said.
“He’s had a long ten years, 11 years. He’s had a lot of hurdles. He’s had a lot of moments to get back up from. And it’s a credit to him. It’s also … something for the rest of us to cling on to, that no matter what happens, no matter how bad you feel, just need to keep going, keep working hard, and you know your day will come.”
Fleetwood, who has a couple of runner-up finishes in majors, was delighted as well.
“I’ve said it a bunch of times, (that) I think Rory is the best player of our generation,” he said.
“I don’t think he’s had to prove that for a while. But for him to have finally got this one … and a career Grand Slam (is) unbelievably special.
“Everything he’s already done in his career is very, very special and I think this time was always going to come. It’s just that Rory makes you feel that it is not going to come sometimes, but this was always going to come, and I’m so happy for him.
“Whatever happened today, Rory’s place in golf was secure, but this has just added another layer on top of that. And … I do believe he’s the best of our generation and now he’s one of the greatest of all time.”
THE GOLDEN BEAR ORDAINS GOLF’S NEWEST GREAT
As McIlroy settled into his green jacket, the immediate plans were a celebratory dinner at Augusta National on Sunday night prior to flying to Florida for time with his family.
Then he will return home to Hollywood a hero, though in truth he had been that well before he took off for America, a local boy made good with dreams of conquering the world. The celebrations from those watching from his own club mirrored his own on the 73rd.
When thanking Augusta National for the week, McIlroy became emotional when talking about his parents and said that he could not wait to return to Northern Ireland to see them.
Such was the magnitude of the tension associated with the final round, but also the tournament, McIlroy was exhausted, describing it as an “emotionally draining week for a lot of reasons,”. In truth, it proved that for everyone watching on as well.
“It was just a complete roller coaster of emotions today and honestly, what came out of me on the last green there, in the playoff, was at least 11 years, if not 14 years, of pent up emotion,” he said.
“In reality, it’s very difficult. I’ve carried that burden since August 2014. It’s been nearly 11 years (of) not just about winning my next major, but the career Grand Slam, of trying to join a group of five players to do it, (of) watching a lot of my peers get green jackets in the process.
“It’s been difficult and I’ve tried to approach this tournament with the most positive attitude each and every time that I’ve shown up.
“I was able to bounce back and show .. that resilience that I’ve talked about a lot. It was a heavy weight to carry and … thankfully, I don’t have to carry it (anymore) and it frees me up. I know I’m coming back here every year, which is lovely.”
McIlroy is now the holder of five major titles, adding the Masters title of 2025 to his British Open success in 2014, the US Open title in 2011 and his US PGA successes in 2011-12.
This is a moment for McIlroy and golf to celebrate. And Nicklaus, who spoke with such pleasure about his lunch companion from a week ago, is certain more success will follow, saying “you’ll see a lot more really good golf out of Rory”.
“He wanted to win the Masters. The career Grand Slam came with that,” Nicklaus said.
“But … I think it’s very difficult when you’ve had so many chances and been in the position so many times and you struggle to get there. And he struggled, even today, a lot.
“He struggled throughout the week, but he kept coming back, kept coming back. And I think that’s what’s the big thing to me, is that he did not let that defeat him. The mistakes he made, they did not defeat him.
“It only spurred him to play better and he did. And that is what, to me, is so sensational about it. I think it’s just wonderful the way he played. I’m very, very proud of him.”