Rory McIlroy dropped to his knees with what he called "14 years of pent-up emotion."
Darren Riehl
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Six-hundred and sixty-five days ago, Rory McIlroy stood at the front of a white tent, his ego dented and his score one too many. He looked out over a gaggle of golf media and left us with one final sentence:
“I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”
You wanted to believe him but you couldn’t be sure. We were in Beverly Hills, at Los Angeles Country Club, the site of his latest woulda-coulda-shoulda, the 2023 U.S. Open. You couldn’t possibly envision 100 more Sundays like that one. One hundred? But LACC was nothing compared to the 2025 Masters.
ONE THOUSAND AND ONE DAYS AGO, McIlroy stood at a different lectern, in St. Andrews, Scotland, as stoically as he could muster. It was late, he was going to bed soon, and he knew when he’d wake up and leave St. Andrews, he’d steal a glimpse at the big, yellow leaderboards. For the first time in days, his name would not be at the top of them. He answered 13 questions that night about Defeat Number Whatever, stepped down from the mic, turned out the building and cried into his wife’s arm.
That one stung differently, he said. Because McIlroy will only have a couple more St. Andrews Opens to compete in. They’re less predictable. The next one is 2027, and who knows after that. The Masters is so different.
Because he plays mostly the same tournaments, year after year, we know the McIlroy motions. It’s tournaments in Dubai, then Monterey, then LA, Florida and on to Georgia. Some time each February, he begins to long for the month of April and what it offers. But each year, he is met with all the “noise” surrounding his Masters week and no one else’s. Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Tom Watson and countless other legends of the game all promised publicly that he would win the green jacket he needed for the career Grand Slam. The monkey on his back grew fatter and fatter.
“That’s a hard load to carry,” he said. He wished they didn’t say it.
McIlroy should know, though, that he is the one who creates that noise. It’s not our fault he wins everywhere there is to win but the one place he needed to. It’s not our fault his final round felt like one giant tug-of-war with history. The double-bogey start. Dropping his club mid-swing, only to make birdie. Hitting shots his caddie asked him not to, only for it to work out. McIlroy was so nervy, he could barely eat. But through 64 and a half holes, he held a five-shot lead.
The patrons were getting the Slam they showed up for, but they didn’t want it fireworks-free. No one actually wants a coronation. So when McIlroy irresponsibly left his third shot on the 13th in the creek short of the green, and made his fourth double bogey of the week, a wave of disbelief and new life crested over the property. One by one the massive leaderboards clicked a red 11 (under) into the spot following his red 13. The dominantly pro-McIlroy crowd actually cheered now that the stakes had somehow increased again. McIlroy was now the scariest version of Houdini — the kind that makes you worry as he locks himself in chains under water. If he doesn’t get out, it’s gonna be ugly.
“Have I let this slip again?” McIlroy thought to himself.
Yes, man. Again.
THREE HUNDRED AND ONE DAYS AGO, McIlroy stormed off from the parking lot at Pinehurst. His score was once again one too many. Forty minutes later, his private jet was in the sky, headed home. If he looked out the window, he might have seen Bryson DeChambeau parading the trophy around through a horde of spectators, many of whom relished in the latest McIlroy mishap.
McIlroy didn’t spare a single word for the press, his fans, or the rest of the golf world that night. A few days later, he licked his wounds in New York City of all places, walking the High Line, a touristy, elevated boardwalk where he could get lost in his loneliness among the masses. He sat with his thoughts, made phone calls to those close to him and began thinking about the next major.
Each day was easier than the previous one, he said, and when he promised he wouldn’t do much different were he to get in that position again, you’d be forgiven for being at the end of your rope. But if you were watching then, you were watching again, Sunday. This was rope-a-dope. Like a microcosm for his major championship journey, just when you thought he’d done it, he wouldn’t. And just when you thought he couldn’t, he did.
Count ‘em up and McIlroy had to win — and lose — the green jacket about six times Sunday. He followed that creek visit with a bogey, gifting the lead to Justin Rose. His hard-hooking approach into 15 was the shot of his life until he yanked the 4-foot eagle putt. The dart he dropped in for a birdie on 17 was his greatest 8-iron until he bogeyed the 18th moments later, entering a playoff with Rose.
“I didn’t make it easy on myself today,” he said. “I certainly didn’t make it easy.”
At this course, he never does.
FIVE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN DAYS AGO, McIlroy was 21 years old. He held a four-shot lead on the 10th tee box and duck-hooked one into the cottages reserved for members left of the left trees. His world crumbled rapidly that day, and McIlroy was left staring at the sky, looking for answers. We’ll never know how many times he’s thought of that day (or just that shot) since, but we do know it shook him in a way we could never realize until the final putt dropped.
Around 7:15 Sunday evening, McIlroy flung his putter over his head and let gravity take him to the ground. Like all the way to the ground. Head, shoulders, knees and toes. He called it “at least 11 years, if not 14 years, of pent-up emotion.” He called it a burden, too, but he was wearing a new, size 38 regular jacket when he said so.
A few minutes later, McIlroy was asked to get imaginative. Bring yourself back to Sunday night in 2011, a reporter asked. What would you see and what would you say?
He saw a young man who didn’t know a lot about the world, McIlroy said, “and I would say to him, just stay the course. Just keep believing.”
For someone as eloquent and thoughtful as McIlroy, that sports cliche may cause you to roll your eyes. But you’re allowed to rub those eyes, too, and be emotional. It didn’t need to be this way, but somehow, it’s better that it was. For everyone.
Sean Zak is a writer at GOLF Magazine and just published his first book, which follows his travels in Scotland during the most pivotal summer in the game’s history.
