Rory McIlroy and the making of an exhilarating night of sporting theatre

Rory McIlroy looks upward while speaking after putting on the green Jacket after winning the Masters. Pic: AP Photo/Matt Slocum.

The shot of a lifetime. The worst shot ever down the stretch in a major.

Back-to-back, up and down, a wild sporting ride that distilled Rory McIlroy’s entire career into an exhilarating and exhausting final round at Augusta National.

For most of us, we experienced it in the same way. On a screen, with sweeping shots of fabled green banks and phone notifications blazing in the background. That glorious hook green-finder on the 15th was captured with a golden ball-tracking arc and the start of a Rory bounce down the fairway before it even touched earth

A slump and shake of the head on the 13th as Rae’s Creek still rippled. A smack-in-the-face opening drive that punched into the sand. An understandable giddy chuckle on the seventh after his launch somehow squeezed through a gap in the trees. Rise. Fall. Bigger. Better.

This is the Rory McIlroy experience. You don’t get to watch it. You get on board and live it. He is magnificent. He is maddening. He is what we strive for. He is what we resort to. Both are necessary.

There is a line at the end of the movie Almost Famous when writer Lester Banks, played impeccably by Philip Seymour Hoffman, offers some advice to fictional teen music critic William Miller: “The only currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”

Interactions in all walks of life are dictated, consciously or subconsciously, by an attentiveness to remain cool. A consequence of that is a great deal of falsity. The need to impress and do a cool thing can be overwhelming.

Then there are moments that aren’t driven by a desire to impress, when raw emotion sets in and seeps out. They mean more. Veering between both is Rory.

He does so many cool things. The 35-year-old has the capacity to make an unfathomably difficult sport look so easy. There is an inherent ambition in us all to find and master a pursuit like that. McIlroy can make it so hard on himself too.

He can stumble, he can lash out, he can laugh, he can stay calm and let panic set in; he can wage a war with the little voice in his own mind. Most of us have that galling ability too.

“It is such a battle in your head of trying to stay in the present moment,” he admitted in his post-Masters triumph press conference.

“Trying to hit the next shot good, and then hit the next shot good. That was the battle today. My battle today was with myself. It wasn’t with anyone else. At the end there it was with Justin (Rose), but my battle today was with my mind and staying in the present.

"I’d like to say I did a better job than I did - it was a struggle, but I got it over the line.”

How relatable is that? Not relatable in the sense that our adult existence is comparable to the daily life of a professional athlete with a nine-figure net worth. Relatable in the sense that you can see so much in him.

He bears it all as a golfer. It doesn’t need to be any more than what it is. Flaws are always more interesting than accomplishments in elite athletes. Elite athletes overcoming those flaws is captivating.

Globally - even nationally - McIlroy elicits all sorts of emotional responses. No current golfer can turn that dial like he can. Supporters or detractors, they all care. How could they not?

This is a man who can claim that the Ryder Cup is merely an exhibition and later cry on camera because his team were trashed in the game’s ‘best tournament.’ Start a day in the same competition reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, end it by trying to fight a caddie in a carpark.

Become the first player to make four double bogeys and win the Masters (The last player to win a major after making four doubles was Tiger Woods at the 2008 U.S. Open). Hit a immense lofted approach on 17th and gently plead with the ball as it soars: “Go! Ah, go! Ahhh, go go go!”

Openly admit he has had to overcome a fear of getting hurt before trying to complete the grand slam and acknowledge he got lucky throughout the week after he succeeded.

Sunday was the greatest story golf has ever told. All a sporting fan wants is a game to dig your claws in and drag you along on a wild ride. The sort of tournament that conquers your entire social media feed for the better.

The sort of occasion that prompts a torrent of hysterical WhatsApp outbursts with someone you’ve only met a handful of times. The sort of athlete that makes you hold up your phone and live stream to your FaceTiming father when he is based abroad and can’t find a reliable way to watch it.

A pulse, a jolt, a pure, an unfiltered feeling that exists in its own clearly defined space. What does it all mean?

“I’m not going to compare it to life moments like a marriage or having a child, but it is the best day of my golfing life,” said McIlroy.

“I am very proud of myself. I am proud of never giving up.”

What more could you want.