Rory McIlroy Wins The Masters
He joins the Career Grand Slam club after a playoff win over Justin Rose and in one of the craziest Masters final rounds ever played.
By The Numbers
-11: Leading score after 72 holes (Rose, McIlroy)
3: McIlroy’s score on the first hole of sudden death to win
5: Career majors for McIlroy
128: Months since McIlroy had won a major
3899: Days since McIlroy’s last major win (until Sunday)
4: Double bogeys during the week (first ever for a Masters champion)
6: Members of the Career Grand Slam Club (Sarazen, Hogan, Player, Nicklaus, Woods, McIlroy)
310-329-333-352-295-308-352-310-332-248-317: McIlroy’s non-par 3 tee shots in regulation
3: birdies on the 4th hole Sunday (Kim, Theegala, McIlroy)
35/56: Fairways hit by McIlroy (63%)
47/72: Greens in regulation by McIlroy (65%)
17/25: Scrambling by McIlroy (68%)
329.3: McIlroy’s driving distance average
3: Eagles by McIlroy
18 Birdies by McIlroy
10: Final round birdies by runner-up Justin Rose
72.05: Sunday scoring average
36 and 5: 16th hole location paying homage to the 1975 Masters
A rollercoaster ride of a day.
A cluster unlike any other.
AYFKM.
WTF x 2025.
Rors, bud. Where to start?
You’re a superstar. The Arnie and Savior of 21st-century patrons. The Green Coats have probably never wanted someone to wear a jacket more than you. And this is not just because you remember their names, make eye contact, know how they’ve made their fortune, or can talk shop with them without leaning on your nearby 20-percenter to finish your sentences.
After the zaniest Sunday at the place where they do zany Sundays like no other, you’ll be doing celebratory toasts tonight, taking the jacket across the Atlantic later this week for mum and dad to try on. McIlroy’ll be enjoying this win after several All-World, steel-cut losses in the 11 years since the last major. But let’s be very clear about one thing: it’s a major-worthy mitzvah that the press center has military grade plumbing, padded walls, soft carpet, and an open bar where the Casamigos-fueled Azaleas flowed as soon as you were done talking about winning the 2025 Masters.
“I don't know if any Masters champions had four doubles during the week, but maybe I'm the first,” Rory McIlroy said, looking splendid in a 38R green jacket. “But yeah, just a complete roller coaster of emotions today.”
You think?
To set the record straight: you were the first with four doubles. Craig Stadler—three doubles in 1982—thanks you. And even Jack Nicklaus is trying to figure out what he just witnessed.
“I’ve never seen a tournament where I’ve seen so many good shots and so many bad shots and so many changes of this and that,” he told Golf Channel’s Live From. “I’m delighted for Rory. I know that he’s had a lot of pressure on him. He’s had the world on his shoulders. That was wonderful to see him win.”
McIlroy joins the most exclusive club in golf and maybe all of sports (at least to those who revel in absurdly difficult and near-impossible accomplishments). He also became a permanent part of tournament lore for reasons that’ll take months or even years to sort through and fully grasp. Before addressing the details of this genuinely goofy final round—culminating in McIlroy’s sudden-death playoff win over 66-shooter Justin Rose—let’s establish a few things.
Rory is a true Master. A gift to golf. A complete golfer who has improved with age and found new ways to love the game even when it dumps fire retardant on his unending fire. The whole thing is all so lovely. And beautiful. Proper. Inspiring. Stunning. Even ethereal.
But what the hell did you do to us on 13?
“I thought I played the 13th hole smartly, at least for the first two shots,” he said of quite possibly the worst shot ever hit by a major champion nursing a four-stroke lead with six to go.
“3-wood off the tee, laid it up into a good position. I had 82 yards to the pin. It went into a little valley and it was on the upslope. And usually when I hit wedge shot off upslopes, they come out a little bit left on me. I gave myself like a couple of yards of room to the right. I wasn't aiming at the creek, but it came out, you know, a little weak and a little right.”
A little? You think?
And what do you have to say for yourself about the first hole double bogey that erased the overnight lead before most patrons had stress-devoured their second Georgia Peach Ice Cream Sandwich?
“In a funny way, I feel like the double bogey at the first sort of settled my nerves.”
LOLOLOL. Please, regale your fans in more twisted humor since you can laugh about it now.
“And it's funny, walking to the second tee, the first thing that popped into my head was Jon Rahm a couple years ago making double and going on to win. So at least my mind was in the right place, and was at least thinking positively about it.”
Only Rory McIlroy’s golf brain would remember Rahm’s double and find a way to perk himself after coughing up the 54-hole lead so quickly to playing partner Bryson DeChambeau.
It’s that brain, soul, passion, and wisdom that finally earned him partner status in the firm of Sarazen, Hogan, Player, Nicklaus and Woods.
“You know, there were points in my career where I didn't know if I would have this nice garment over my shoulders, but I didn't make it easy today. I certainly didn't make it easy. I was nervous. It was one of the toughest days I've ever had on the golf course.”
What about the rest of us? Multiple three and four-shot leads—all in one round!—aged the golf world at least 25 years. Even DeChambeau, once he couldn’t realistically win after butchering Amen Corner, felt bad.
“I wanted to cry for him,” said the T5 finisher whose range of talents makes him prime green jacket material. Just not this year.
“I mean, as a professional, you just know to hit it in the middle of the green, and I can't believe he went for it, or must have just flared it.”
In the name of causing everyone so much stress, Rory, a small donation to the AARP might be a nice way to make amends after aging us 10 years on Sunday. I’m thinking $100 million lays a nice foundation for the damage to hearts, livers and brows. We’ll iron out the details with Sean. You keep being you.
Perhaps most reaffirming in McIlroy’s bizarro win that should have been by seven or eight shots?
For a change, the ball listened.
Gaps in trees opened up.
Deadly lies in past majors were decent this week.
Finally, the guy who seemed to get no breaks in crushing losses at St Andrews, Los Angeles and Pinehurst, received the help all legends need to accumulate multiple majors.
“Look, I rode my luck all week. And again, I think with the things that I've had to endure over the last few years, I think I deserved it. Anytime I hit it in the trees this week, I had a gap. Even the second shot on 7 today, which I probably shouldn't have taken on, Harry was telling me not to. I was like, ‘No, no, I can do this.’"
He did. And the post-shot laughter, the tip of the cap to CBS’s on-course reporter Dottie Pepper, and the pure joy at pulling off such a shot under Masters pressure? Incredible.
For the history books that’ll be confused over which brilliant shots by McIlroy to immortalize, he came to the absurdly narrow par-4 seventh and drove into the lefthand pines. He faced a 154-yard second, found a tiny opening, launched 9-iron through it, and, despite brushing against some pine needles (according to Dottie), McIlroy finished 8 feet from the hole. He seemed to let out all of the early-round tension with an incredulous laugh. Caddie Harry Diamond could only shake his head.
And then, in a delightful summation of the misery he put us through this week, McIlroy somehow left one of the fastest downhill putts in golf…short.
“I had problems all week with the 7th, 14th and 17th tee shots, all going that direction for some reason,” McIlroy said. “I knew where the pin was. I knew that the front bunker wasn't bad. I could have chased it up into the front bunker, but I saw a gap, and I was like, I can actually get this on the green, and if it goes in that little bowl, it could go close.
“To be able to pull it off was pretty cool even though I didn't hole that putt either.”
The shot on 7:
Even with a four, the seventh seemed to change the group vibe and gave DeChambeau a small taste of the recovery medicine he’d leaned on for three rounds.
Speaking of McIlroy’s playing partner, who faded to a 75 after holding his game together the first three days on pins, needles, lead tape, launch monitors, 90s Bond movies, and pure grit: DeChambeau admitted that he and McIlroy weren’t exchanging recipes out there.
“Didn't talk to me once all day,” DeChambeau said without any bitterness. “I take a lot of good from this week. I'm excited for the rest of my life.”
McIlroy proceeded to birdie the ninth and tenth holes with brilliant iron shots, then enjoyed the first of the miracle breaks that have eluded him since Valhalla in 2014.
A pitch-out approach on No. 11 finished inches short of the pond.
After a classic, reassuring, and decidedly boring old school par on the disaster-waiting-to-happen 12th, McIlroy seemed to have passed the key test of recent years since the Masters’ of late are pretty much wrapped by that crazy little par 3. He wisely played safe off the 13th tee, laid up to with a perfect angle into the green, and then hit an inexplicably horrendous, 18-handicapper-approved wedge shot into the tributary of Raes Creek.
“I mean, I thought I played the 13th hole smartly, at least for the first two shots,” McIlroy joked afterwards. “I had 82 yards to the pin. It went into a little valley and it was on the upslope. And usually when I hit wedge shot off upslopes, they come out a little bit left on me. I gave myself like a couple of yards of room to the right. I wasn't aiming at the creek, but it came out, you know, a little weak and a little right, and that was…”
Okay enough.
It was an incomprehensible mistake on a day of many from the field.
Nicklaus concurred.
“The only way to lose the tournament was to put the ball in the water and do something dumb,” the six-time Masters winner told Golf Channel’s Live From. “He waited one more shot to do that. I thought it was the right shot because he should have made 4 ½ - four or five and that’s fine. I couldn’t figure out why some of the shots that were played were played, but it takes a really talented player to win with some of the shots that he hit. Four double bogeys and to win the golf tournament is incredible. The talent he has is enormous.”
That talent would next surface on the 15th hole where, after bogeying the 14th to lose the lead to Rose, McIlroy drove it 332 yards down the left side of the excessively over-planted landing area on the over-engineered par-5. A 208-yard shot awaited with pines in his way. McIlroy’s ability to absorb the moment, assess options, and execute shots took over.
“I had 8-iron in my hand, and Bryson hit first and hit it in the water,” McIlroy said. “The breeze had freshened up, so I switched back to a 7 and then hit that shot. It was one of those where I knew it was enough to cover, and if I turned it, great, and if it didn't, you're sort of in that right trap, and it's not an easy up-and-down. But it's a decent miss.”
He missed the seven-foot eagle putt. But the low-drama birdie on a day of excessive histrionics put McIlroy back into the lead just as Rose bogeyed the 17th with an assist from Hootie’s increasingly overhanging fairway pines.
McIlroy hit a beauty to the 16th’s non-traditional (and kinda questionable) Sunday pin placement.
“It was the one hole that I was not worried about, but was sort of in the back of my mind, was 16 because that was an unusual Sunday pin on 16,” he said. “It's a very difficult location, and to hit the shot that I did; I think the iron shots that I hit coming in, 15, 16, 17, not quite the last in regulation, but in the playoff, I made a lot of good iron swings.”
McIlroy was unable to convert the difficult 16th hole birdie putt. But as with several moments during the round, his nerves fueled an unusual amount of impatience. McIlroy was clearly hitting shots faster than normal and even looked pained waiting for DeChambeau to putt out at times. The nerves started as soon as he woke up Sunday morning.