AUGUSTA, Ga. — IN THE 27 JUBILANT MINUTES THAT RORY MCILROY took questions from reporters at Sunday’s Masters winner’s press conference, grinning from the podium in his freshly pressed, newly acquired, hard-won green jacket, only one subject brought him to tears.
“He’s been like a big brother to me the whole way through my life,” McIlroy said.
And then he broke down.
McIlroy’s Masters win was intensely meaningful for several obvious reasons. Because it ended a major championship drought of a decade-plus. Because it’s the biggest tournament in the world, and he’d never won it, even though 14 years ago he’d blown a four-stroke final-round lead in horrifying fashion. Because it completed his quest for the career Grand Slam, a feat only Tiger Woods had accomplished in the last half-century. And because it came at the end of an exhausting 19-hole Sunday, which came at the end of a rollercoaster week, which came at the end of a frustrating, futile stretch of nearly 4,000 days.
But it was also meaningful because a win for McIlroy meant a win for the silent, mysterious, much-maligned man beside him.
The moment McIlroy’s final birdie putt fell, clinching victory on his 73rd hole of the week, he later admitted he felt no joy — just relief. That was a small piece of a larger admission: that it’s been hard to be Rory McIlroy, given the weight of expectations. Several times he mentioned the word burden, acknowledging that his had grown weightier with every missed opportunity. And he shouted out the man who has, for most of that stretch, been there to help shoulder the load, the man he hugged first when the final putt fell. After all, who better than a caddie to help carry a golfer’s burden?
“I’ve known Harry since I was seven years old,” McIlroy said. “We’ve had so many good times together.”
In the decade-plus since McIlroy’s last major championship win, throughout a drought defined by increasingly heartbreaking close calls, fans and critics have searched for something or someone upon whom to pin the blame. That has meant plenty of second-guessing of everything from his coaches to his mindset to his pre-tournament preparation. It has also meant plenty of ammo fired in the direction of Harry Diamond, who has served as McIlroy’s caddie and right-hand man since 2017.
Before this week, whenever McIlroy had been asked about Diamond and the fact that they’d never won a major together, he’d given a variation of the same two-word answer: everything but. They’d won Players Championships. They’d racked up PGA Tour victories. They’d won FedEx Cups and Races to Dubai. They’d won Ryder Cups. They’d reached World No. 1. And they’d come as close as you can to winning major championships without actually winning a major championship.
Everything but.
Still, because the majors are what really, truly matter, the criticism poured in, most of it speculative, largely centered on the fact that their friendship could inhibit their professional relationship in pivotal moments. It’s true that they are friends; that bit is understated, if anything. McIlroy recounted again on Sunday their first-ever meeting, which came when he was a seven-year-old on the putting green at Holywood Golf Club in Northern Ireland. Diamond was a player, too, when he first met McIlroy and for many years after; he represented Ireland multiple times as a junior and later won the prestigious 2012 West of Ireland amateur. This was hardly just a buddy off the couch.
THERE WAS A MOMENT BEHIND AUGUSTA NATIONAL’S CLUBHOUSE on Sunday where Diamond proved his mettle. McIlroy had faced a five-footer for the win on the 18th hole in regulation and, when he’d missed, made a shell-shocked walk to scoring, his mind a whir. But as the two were preparing to load onto a cart and head back to the 18th tee for the first sudden-death playoff hole, Diamond spoke up.
“He said to me, ‘Well, pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning,'” McIlroy recounted in the presser. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely we would have.’ 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 reframed it a little bit for me.”
The rest was history.
WE KNOW WHAT MCILROY THOUGHT OF IT ALL. He gave a post-round interview, and then a winner’s speech, and then a victory press conference. And in that presser came a not-so-subtle shot at the Diamond doubters.
“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, yeah, this one is just as much his as it is mine,” McIlroy said.
But what did Diamond make of it all? That’ll require a bit more guesswork. He doesn’t do interviews and isn’t even active on social media, keen to stay as far as he can from the center of the story. He’s done remarkably well in that regard; McIlroy is the most-scrutinized golfer of his generation but the general public has likely never heard Diamond speak. Still, surely he’d make an exception on a Grand Slam Sunday?
A request went in from assembled reporters as McIlroy’s win became official: Diamond politely declined. Golf Channel approached him for an interview a short while later; he declined that, too. For the first time that I can remember, we heard nothing from the winning caddie, who stuck to the original caddie creed — show up, keep up, shut up — even with victory safely secured.
As revelers reluctantly filed from the course and night fell and McIlroy finished up his press availability, I wandered over to Augusta National’s caddie house, where Diamond was collecting his things. I didn’t really expect an on-the-record interview, but I figured it was worth an ask; at the very least it would be a chance to offer earnest, in-person congratulations, and perhaps there was even something he wanted to say about his friend-slash-boss and their three-decade journey.
As I waited for the champion caddie to emerge I took a seat in the bleachers at the edge of Augusta National’s practice area, illuminated but empty, just a few yards from the space where Diamond and McIlroy had warmed up some seven hours and an entire lifetime before. It was still now. It was quiet. With no phone to distract me I stared into the night and ran through what I’d just seen and settled on one clear thought:
This changes all of it.
Those Players Championships? Those FedEx Cup wins? Those ascensions to World No. 1? They’re shinier, fuller, more impressive in the context of a Masters win. For years every McIlroy PGA Tour victory came with a subtext of yeah, but can he win the big one; now those are feathers in his cap, impressive entries in the best golf resume of the post-Tiger era. Every close call of the past decade now looks like a step on the stairway to Sunday’s ultimate satisfaction. Winning takes care of everything.
I sat for 10 minutes, then 15, then 20, replaying the shots of the day: the devastating double bogey at 1 and the remarkable bounce-back birdie at 3 and the toggle between triumph and tragedy that continued the rest of the round, exhausting and exhilarating a crowd cheering for history and dreading a devastating collapse. I wondered how it had looked and felt to Diamond, the wildest day in major memory. And then I realized that Diamond was gone. He must have left from a different exit and shuttled away into the night, off to join the fun.
Everything but? That’s a thing of the past. McIlroy and Diamond have won everything, period.
Plus whatever’s next.
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
