If you thought you knew everything about Rory McIlroy’s historic final round at the 2025 Masters, think again. In a new documentary, McIlroy made at least one big revelation about that wild day, and it involves his rival Bryson DeChambeau.
McIlroy and DeChambeau dueled for the green jacket in Sunday’s final pairing last year at Augusta, and both players reported that they didn’t speak at all that day. But now we know that’s not true.
In a clip from “Rory McIlroy: The Masters Wait,” an upcoming Amazon Prime documentary about McIlroy’s Masters triumph, McIlroy revealed that he and DeChambeau got into a tense standoff over who would putt first halfway through the final round, in what McIlroy described as “a really big moment.”
Here’s what you need to know.
McIlroy-DeChambeau get in tense debate on Masters Sunday
When the third round was over at last year’s Masters, McIlroy found himself with a two-shot lead and his best chance in years to capture his first green jacket. But he would have to survive a final-round pairing with his chief rival and, on the leaderboard, the biggest threat to his career Grand Slam dreams: DeChambeau.
The two had gone toe-to-toe on major Sundays before, with Bryson coming out on top in a heated battle at the 2024 U.S. Open.
When McIlroy opened Sunday’s Masters finale with a shocking double bogey, the two superstars were suddenly tied. DeChambeau took the lead briefly with a birdie at 2, before McIlroy settled in with back-to-back birdies at 3 and 4 (Bryson made bogeys at 3 and 4).
As the pair arrived at Augusta’s difficult 9th green, McIlroy’s lead had grown to three. Both players were facing birdie putts from a similar length. So similar, in fact, that they each believed the other player’s ball was closer to the hole.
The stakes could not have been higher. If DeChambeau sank his putt and Rory missed, Bryson would be within two shots of the lead with nine holes to play. If the opposite happened, Bryson would be virtually out of the running.
That’s where the dust-up began, as McIlroy revealed in the clip from his new documentary.
“I thought it very clearly was my putt. I thought his ball was slightly closer than mine,” McIlroy begins in the clip. “We sort of look at each other, and I’m like, ‘Well I think it’s me to go.’ And he’s like, ‘Well I think it’s me to go.'”
McIlroy then explained that both he and DeChambeau saw it as an advantage to putt first in that moment.
“It’s a very gamesmanship-y, match-play thing. Really, both of us want to putt first. Because if you can hole that putt before your opponent, it puts pressure on them,” McIlroy said.
