Rory McIlroy escapes playoff for first Masters win to complete career Grand Slam
AUGUSTA, Ga. — It’s done.
No one said it would be easy, and it wasn’t.
But it’s done.
Finally.
At long last, Rory McIlroy is a Masters champion and has become the sixth player in golf history — and the first in 25 years — to complete the career Grand Slam.
He now has a green jacket to go with his Claret Jug for the British Open, Wanamaker Trophy for the PGA Championship and U.S. Open trophy.
And that coveted green garment came a lot harder than any other victory in McIlroy’s life.
“There were points in my career where I didn’t know if I would have this nice garment over my shoulders,’’ McIlroy said, caressing his newly minted green jacket. “I certainly didn’t make it easy. I was nervous. It was one of the toughest days I’ve ever had on the golf course.’’
It took surviving an absolute roller coaster of a round and a one-hole playoff with Justin Rose for McIlroy to finally get over the line.
He stuffed his approach shot on 18 in the playoff to 2 feet from the flag after Rose hit his to 10 feet.
With McIlroy facing a tap-in birdie, Rose needed to make his to stay alive, but he missed on the right side.
That left McIlroy, who earlier had missed a 4-foot par putt on 18 in regulation that would have won it, to make his for the most important victory of his life.
When it went in, McIlroy raised his arms to the sky, tossed his putter behind him and then crumpled to the ground on all fours holding his head in his arms, trembling as he shed tears onto the green.
“A lot of pent-up emotion that just came out on that 18 green,’’ McIlroy said. “A moment like that makes all the years and all the close calls worth it. It’s nearly 11 years — not just about winning my next major, but the career Grand Slam, trying to join a group of five players to do it, you know, watching a lot of my peers get green jackets in the process.’’
The 35-year-old Northern Irishman’s harrowing, stress-saturated, gritty victory at the 89th Masters on Sunday around sun-splashed Augusta National with its lush fairways lined 30 bodies deep, put him in the most elite company in golf.
McIlroy entered the day leading by two shots, was in total control early on the back nine with a four-shot lead and then inexplicably appeared to be throwing it all away.
He would lose the lead with a pitch shot into Rae’s Creek on the 13th hole and a riveting Rose rally. McIlroy trailed by one shot after the double on 13 and Rose birdies on Nos. 15 and 16.
Then he would hit a couple of the shots of his life.
First, on the par-5 15th hole, a hole he double-bogeyed in the first round, he carved a 6-iron around the trees and over the water onto the green and birdied it to tie Rose at 11-under par.
Rose would birdie the 18th hole to finish on 11-under and he was tied with McIlroy.
Then, with Rose on the practice range warming up for a possible playoff, McIlroy would then positively rip an 8-iron to within 3 feet on No. 17, made birdie and took a one-shot lead.
That left McIlroy one par on 18 away from history. He hit his drive onto the fairway, walking confidently after it upon impact. That left him with a wedge in his hands — a wedge he would nervously push into the right greenside bunker, leaving the swelled gallery around 18 gasping.
Determined to test everyone’s heart — not least his own — he splashed the bunker shot out to 4 feet. Four feet for everything … and he missed it, the ball sliding past the hole on the left side, never touching the hole.
More stress as the playoff would begin.
When McIlroy and his caddie, Harry Diamond, were walking to the golf cart to bring them back to the 18th tee for the playoff, Diamond said to him, “Well, pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning.’’
“He basically said to me, ‘Look, you would have given your right arm to be in a playoff at the start of the week,’ ’’ McIlroy said. “So that sort of reframed it a little bit for me. I just kept telling myself, just make the same swing you made in regulation, and I hit a great drive up there, and yeah, the rest is history.’’
It’s been 11 long years of scrutiny for McIlroy, 11 years of being asked why he hasn’t won another major championship, and why can’t he win a Masters.
Every time he’s come to Augusta National since 2011, McIlroy has been reminded of his epic final-round meltdown on a day he brought a four-shot lead to the first tee, shot 80 and walked off the course tied for 15th and in tears.
All of those demons were exorcised this week, the last of which was snuffed out on the most glorious Sunday afternoon of his life.
There were tears from the agony of defeat in 2011.
On Sunday, when that last 3-footer disappeared into the cup, there were tears again.
This time tears of joy.
