Masters 2025: Rory McILroy goes from triumph to tragedy in Triumph to finally end his major drought of a year

Augusta, Ga. – Rory McILroy was held above his ball in the 18th Fairway in Augusta National, in shock.

In the previous 90 minutes, he had struck off an advance of 5 strokes during the final round of the Masters, well on the way to the biggest strangulation work of his career – and perhaps all in 89 years of history of the tournament.

Then he launched a district of a gap of 126 yards high in the Augusta sky which settled four feet from the cut in the playoffs with Justin Rose – the winner obtains the green jacket.

For the rest of his career, he will not strike a more important shot, because he straightened his ship which flows straight out of Rae's Creek and in the butler cabin where – after having emptied the four feet to defeat Rose – he finally slipped on the elusive green jacket and finished the big career sunset.

“I dreamed of this moment as long as I remember,” he said Sunday evening, dressed in a regulatory 38 green jacket. “There were points in my career where I did not know if I would have this pretty clothing above my shoulders, but I did not make things easy today. I certainly did not facilitate the task.”

Anyone who followed a minute of golf course knows the saga of Rory McILroy – which he won four majors at the age of 25 – something he, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had done, but had not won another since.

Almost eleven years and counting this – 3,882 days since he won the 2014 PGA championship – a sequence so brutally long that she stretched the childish child with curly locks to the chopped veteran with rampant gray on his favorites.

He entered the final on Sunday with a two -stroke advance on Bryson Dechambeau in what was planned to be a battle between the two biggest heavy goods vehicles.

In his 17th essay, Rory McILroy finally has his green jacket. (AP / Ashley Landis)

(Associated Press)

But it never really materialized. After an early pants – a double bogey at the first – Mciroy fled from the field with birdies consecutive to n ° 3 and 4. Two additional birdies at n ° 9 and 10 vaul it 14 sous the tournament.

With eight holes to play, he held a five -stroke advance on a field that seemed unable to race or simply resigned that the tournament was over – that McILroy's victory was inevitable.

Then came an apparently harmless bogey at 11, a chip in water at 13 who led to a double, a trip in the trees at 14 years old who led to another Bogey, and suddenly … The demons who haunted him during these 11 years were awakened, but now they barked stronger than ever.

McILroy had not only been caught, he had completely lost his head in the face of a suddenly pink increase, which came from seven in the nine rear to take the lead.

Of all the majors McILroy's held the head in the final round, it should have been the most relaxing promenade of nine of his life – a crowning of a brilliant career, culminating by finally ending the great career slam.

But everything collapsed, an Irish tragedy playing in real time on the biggest stage of the golf course.

He should cringe if he was going to transform the tragedy into a triumph.

It started with a brilliant approach at 15, creating a birdie, followed by another birdie at 17.

But when Rose has drained a 20 feet apparently impossible for Birdie out of 18, it meant that McILroy should be equal to 18 to win. He does not … just as incredibly missing a 5 -foot, setting up the playoffs of a holes.

The speed of all this is the nerve that is unleashed, if not slightly unfair – narrowing the entire 72 -hole tournament to a single hole. But that's what it is.

Rose had been in this position before, losing in the playoffs against Sergio Garcia in 2017. He first found the fairway, dividing the narrow tunnel which is the 18th tee, just like McILroy. Then Rose put her tight approach at 15 feet. McILroy was as follows.

After missing the putt to win less than 15 minutes earlier, his friend of Caddie and always Harry Diamond told him when they went up in the cart until 18, “Well, my friend, we would have taken this on Monday morning.”

“I say to myself” Yeah, absolutely we would have “” said McILroy afterwards.

This resets him, calmed him while he was standing in the 18th Fairway, needing to match Rose. What he did, then some – putting him at only four feet.

After Rose missed, McILroy had a second chance to win the Masters – the tournament that had escaped him … forever.

When the putt fell, McILroy let out a primary cry, releasing the scar tissue of emotion that had accumulated in the past 11 years – 14 if you count his fusion at the Masters of 2011. Then he fell on his knees.

“It was quite a relief,” he said. “There was not much joy in this reaction. It was a relief. …

“I have been coming here for 17 years, and it was a decade and more emotion that came out of me there.”

For more than a decade, he answers the same question each time he arrives in Augusta National: why have you not won here? Late Sunday evening, he entered the interview room of the National Center of Augusta National and started with his own question:

“I would like to start this press conference with a question myself: what are we going to talk about next year?”

Touched, but probably … When are you going to win it again?

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