Amid an unhinged Masters madness, Rory McIlroy's heart of a champion beats loudest

After 11 years of waiting, the black and white world turns all green as Irishman somehow clinches career Grand Slam

Winner Rory McIlroy holds the trophy at the Masters golf tournament. Picture: AP Photo/Ashley Landis

The duality of man. The duality of McIlroy. An Augusta Sunday 11 years in the making? Or was it 14. Try 35. All the numbers and their implications, they’d all blur as the most chaotic, intoxicating Masters, a Major for all ages, descended into an unhinged madness.

At the centre of it all stood this 35-year-old, 5’10” Irishman. Why does his height matter? Not sure. This wasn’t a day for logical questions or answers or observations. Or even sane outcomes. So look at it the other way, what doesn’t height measure? It doesn’t measure heart.

After five-plus hours to keep cardiac specialists in work through to next spring, it was McIlroy who stood tallest at the end of it all. How? Ah, that feels like it’s for another day. After a lie down maybe, a long walk, preferably into an ocean. There was a body of water on the 18th green as his tears flowed. How he had the energy to lift himself up out of the heap he collapsed into when the moment of deliverance came? The heart, you suppose.

Technically, McIlroy won it with a birdie at the first playoff hole, denying Justin Rose. But he lost it too. Twice, maybe three times, once in the most inexplicably godawful way on the 13th. It would have been a Van De Velde-style career ender for many. Another arrived on that same 18th when he missed the most makable putt to win it all. No coming back from that, surely? Back he came to win it. There were at least two shots of a lifetime because we all aged a couple of lifetimes along the way.

So, that duality: glory or failure. Immortality or absolute ignominy. This binary world that he’s had to live through for far too long now, his own lifetime really. The career grand slam. The end of the drought. Revenge. History. Whatever else you want to pile on all 5’10” of him. Somehow, someway it’s over now. No more black and white. Just green.

And when it all lifted what are we left with: images. The image of him walking off the 1st after a disastrous double bogey. The image of roaring laughing Rory on the 7th. The image of his ball, three rolls from disaster on the 11th but clinging on. The image of Bryson DeChambeau, beaten into submission by the 13th. The image of the yellow shot tracer on his outrageous lunatic 7 iron swing hook on the 15th. The image of his half-lifted putter not connecting on that first clinching putt which slipped by, a duplicate of missed short ones last summer at Pinehurst that broke that heart of his. Then the lasting image, down on his knees the shoulders shuddering as it all poured out. What a day and what a place to bring an end to it all.

Augusta National is a sprawling expanse of sentimentality. Maybe it’s part of the aging process, maybe it’s the chaotic state of the world once one’s forced back down Magnolia Lane but the pimento cheesiness of it all doesn’t grate as it once did. Ultimately, when a sporting entity or event delivers as consistently as the Masters does, as unforgettably as this, it can dial it all up as much as it sees fit. This, you’re quickly made aware, is a Sunday when all dials will turn as righty-tighty as they go.

While Sky attempt some self-control, CBS and its North American coverage is Augusta’s state broadcaster of schmaltz. Cutting inside Butler Cabin for its final hype-up, the smiles of Jim Nantz and Trevor Immelman contrasted against dark wood furnishings which look unfit for our modern age. “All of that weight on his shoulders,” said Immelman over footage of McIlroy hurrying through the throngs to the first tee. Then Nantz heralded the “gladiatorial arrival” of DeChambeau, who didn’t leave a fist unbumped or a five high.

Despite having tuned up in close proximity, this was the first interaction between the final pairing. “Have a great day today,” McIlroy said as he shook DeChambeau’s hands. Call it gladiatorial good manners. There was a great day out there, even if it wouldn't arrive until the evening sun poured gold down on the place. McIlroy’s greatest day. One of the grandest in Irish sporting history.

DELIVERANCE: Rory McIlroy reacts after winning in a playoff against Justin Rose after the final round at the Masters golf tournament, Sunday, April 13, 2025, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Nantz had been far from alone in reaching for coliseum comparisons. This was a stacked Sunday slate of duels in the sun. The Holywood featured in all of them: Rory vs Bryson, Rory vs the ghosts (Augusta 2011, St Andrews 2023, Pinehurst 2024, take your pick), Rory vs the world, and a headline bout — Rory vs Rory. For good measure we got a bonus matchup: Rory vs Rosey.

McIlroy had begun the week speaking of self-preservation, learning from all of the heartbreaks. These weren’t coping but healing mechanisms. Getting the body and the mind ready to do it all again. Even his distractions spoke of steeling for this Sunday combat. Asked what he was reading, he pointed to John Grisham’s The Reckoning, a book which opens on a farmer sitting awake before dawn and deciding “it was time for the killing”.

After Saturday’s 66 set him up for this life-defining round he revealed he’d watched Zootopia with daughter Poppy. A Disney animation it may be but it’s also one which begins with a young female rabbit speaking of “fear, treachery and blood lust”. What, we wonder, were Judy Hopps’ views on LIV?

McIlroy made his plenty clear. Which made DeChambeau swooping in at Pinehurst last year so sickening. Ten months and eleven years of demons, all of them, all wrapped into one round of golf. All wrapped into one opening tee shot. It was a booming drive that needed one more yard. Instead, it found sand and as DeChambeau sent his wide too the rollercoaster had begun. The pair left the tee with McIlroy pointing off to his left, perhaps where DeChambeau’s shot has gone or perhaps offering patrons with a weak stomach a final chance to get off the ride.

How to describe the next 18 holes? Imagine the Rory McIlroy Experience™ compressed into a a single-serving for a 2025 audience. At different points broadcasters put up graphs and charts to try to help us make sense of what we were seeing. But there was rarely any sense out there.

Needing a steady start, McIlroy instead double bogeyed and was back in a tie for the lead. He left the second one shot back, the third one shot up and the fourth three shots up. There are books to be written about each of those holes. The second nine will need an anthology. Other, truly great golfers were out there but early on the eyes couldn’t move off the final two. Every single swing felt oppressively pressured.

McIlroy was unmistakably making the better ones, DeChambeau a scrambling fitful challenger. It was far too early for daggers but out in the second cut on the 7th McIlroy found a scything wedge of wonder. 

Through a gap too high and tight for everyone else in the sport he sent one into orbit. It was up there so long the galleries and commentators greeted its reappearance with an ovation that was wild but bewildered too. McIlroy himself howled with laughter. “It’s a good thing he doesn’t listen to me!” caddie Harry Diamond told on-course analyst Dottie Pepper.  It ended up being a par four yet still felt like a shot and moment that brought a Major that much closer. How little we knew.

The driver wasn’t working perfectly but everything else was, especially the putter. Either side of the turn, McIlroy rolled in a pair of birdie 3s and suddenly the lead was four to Rose, who’d crept slowly then quickly, DeChambeau five back. The rollercoaster felt steady. Is that it? Course not.

Chaos unfolded at 11 where McIlroy almost hooked his approach wet, the ball stopping a whisper from water. DeChambeau found the pond with a flourish. At Amen Corner this was divine comedy. The black humour had in fact just begun. Having laid up at 13 McIlroy hit maybe the worst shot of his professional life into the stream. A three-shot lead was disappearing. Two holes ahead, Rose found another birdie and they were suddenly, inexplicably tied at 11-under.

Another shaky bogey and McIlroy was now behind and something needed to be found again. But from where? How was he not broken by now? Those healing mechanisms need to be studied forever. Having driven himself into too good a position on 15, where his chaotic week truly began on Thursday, a layup looked the wise option. Instead his lunacy kicked in, he swung his six-iron at it and started walking. the stands exploded in wonder as it boomeranged in and rolled ever closer. Nantz called it “the shot of a lifetime”.

Edition 2.0 arrived on the 17th with another stunning approach which answered McIlroy's own desperate pleas for it to "go, go". The birdie should have been enough but wasn’t. An inexplicable bogey was found from the middle of the 72nd fairway. When his clinching putt rolled by his face briefly had that Pinehurst look on it. 

Back to the tee then. Rose arrived and they did the 18th all over again. Another perfect drive. This time the wedge worked from the middle of the fairway, the ball rolling mercifully back within two, perhaps three feet. When Rose missed his longer birdie attempt the stage was set. Across the course and the world, a dread rose. No need. McIlroy was up to it.

“I gotta go get a green jacket.” 😂 pic.twitter.com/TNJnv7pN31

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) April 13, 2025

He wept and walked and wept some more, embracing everyone within touching distance, a special bear hug with Shane Lowry. When he group-hugged another bunch he broke away and told them, “I gotta go get a green jacket?” It better be flexible in the chest to fit that bloody heart of his.

And the rest of us? Let's go get that long lie down.