Augusta, go. – Four miles west of Augusta National Golf Club, in the Forest Hills section of the city, where colonial generations mix with brick Tudors, De Tweering settled in a garden party on Wednesday. It was the night before the Masters Tournament of 2025, and Nick Faldo and Ben Crenshaw sat on a veranda for a soiree that was typical for this time of the year here. Small, exclusive, deep bag. A Hireside chat between the two Masters winners was the highlight of the evening. Faldo and Crenshaw did their bit, played the hits and told one story after the other.
Then the subject of conversation turned to Rory Mcilroy. Voices became desperate.
Crenshaw sounded like a spiritual one who begged everyone to retain faith. Now 73, with a head of Wispy white hair, the double Masters winner (1984, 1995) looks as reliable as everyone else. So everyone nodded when Crenshaw said that nobody in the world is playing golf better than McIlroy. This is the year, he said. This must be the year. Crenshaw predicted that McIlroy would win his first masters this week.
Faldo agreed. The six-time big winner won three times in Augusta-1989, 1990, 1996 and said that McIlroy has always been a natural fit for the course. Faldo not only chose McIlroy this week, but also said he would root down for him. Then a sigh came. Faldo wondered aloud which version of McIlroy would appear on Augusta. Would it be the happy version? The analytical version? The dosed version? It sounded like Faldo described a man in a house of mirrors. All McIlroys we got to know all look at each other.
The next morning Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Gary Player brought. Eleven masters between them. The Earters of the Tournament attracted their green coats and entered the MediaCenter after making the opening shots of the day.
The subject of conversation turned again to Rory Mcilroy.
“I think Rory McIlroy will win the Masters this year, and I hope he does that because it would give Golf a big boost to have another winner of the Grand Slam,” said player, supported every word. “He has the best swing in Golf of. out. ask. He is the strongest golfer. He does a dead lift of 400 pounds! ‘
Watson followed. In his regular Midwestern Timbre: “I just have a gut feeling … That Rory is the man who is going to win this week. That’s … The Bottom Line. That’s my gut feeling.”
Then Jack. “I think it’s time that Rory won.”
This has been McIlroy’s place in the most exclusive space of Golf for so long. He was the teenquely prodigy who fulfilled all his boundless talent in one hasty wave of curly black hair and success levels that suggested that he didn’t know any better. His future then? It was a foregone conclusion. Nicklaus once said aloud that a 25-year-old McIlroy could win 15 or 20 Majors. Graeme McDowell, a friend and colleague Ulsterman, went against that McIlroy ‘would win as many Majors as he wants’.
Everyone always reacted with the same Quip. Good luck, boy. Tongue-in-cheek. The child was so good, he didn’t need luck.
But then the boy turned into a 35-year-old man. A man who became a father. A man who discovered that the sides first turn gray. A man who never won all those Majors and who in fact needed a little luck.
All that – that is around the corner late on Sunday afternoon, by a tunnel of fans of Augusta’s 18th Green, walking without a shadow despite a shallow sun; Arms vast, look well, banging on the chest. Catharsis, your name is Rory. The old boy won the 2025 masters in the most patent way that is possible, by beating an army of demons and eventually meeting his place in history. It cost a play -off with Justin Rose. It took some blunders of all time and potential disasters. It cost every conceivable flashback to all conceivable disappointments. But it happened.
McIlroy fell on his knees after the last putt on Sunday, McIlroy dropped his head as low as possible as it was possible. He pressed his forehead on the 18th Green, pulled up a few centimeters and unleashed a scream that reached Augusta from 2025 in Augusta until 2011. And from Pinehurst to Los Angeles to St. Andrews. And from his house in Florida to his house in Noord -Ireland.
Do you want to talk about pressure?
Listen to that scream.
“There was not much joy in that response,” said McIlroy on Sunday evening, rubbed. “It was all lighting.”
Rory McIlroy finally has his green jacket. (Andrew Redington / Getty images)
We have always wanted to understand the pressure that both the young Rory McIlroy and the old Rory McIlroy felt. Volumes on volumes are written on it. Documentaries are included. Podcast rich are built on it.
But the truth has always been that nobody has ever known. It is one thing to put pressure on yourself. It is one thing to feel the pressure of fans and media. It is slightly different to extend your arms and to wear the pressure that you have handed over by every large one that you will come for you. That is where McIlroy has been on the task for a long time and how real, how do you resent history?
Earlier this week, after following a Landmines Landed Even-Par 72 with a Bounce back 66, McIlroy met reporters and was asked about those comments from Nicklaus, player and Watson. You could see damn that the glint leaves the eyes of McIlroy behind. He let his head rest on his hand and pulled his face a bit along his palm. He was bent so hard that the room had to dive. “They are getting old,” he said with a Let’s-Move-on Laugh.
Sunday McIlroy was ready to talk.
Do you want to talk about pressure?
“You have had Jack, Gary, Tom, Tiger, you name it, all come here, and all say that I will win the Masters one day,” said McIlroy, nodding and wanted to meet every note of the point. “That is a difficult load to wear. It is real.
“You know, these are idols of mine, and it’s … Look, it’s very flattering that they all come here and they believe in me and they believe in my capacities to win this tournament and, you know, the Grand Slam and that reach everything.
“But it doesn’t help, you know?”
It is somewhat amazing that the man stands upright after so many years. McIlroy was 25 when he won his fourth major – the PGA championship 2014 in Valhalla. He was only a month older than Nicklaus was when he won his fourth. He was only nine months older than Woods was when he won his fourth.
It is now difficult to remember, but it was once assumed that McIlroy would not only win at Clips that are comparable to those two, but also one would be to overshadow a generation of professional players, just like she is. Around 2010 to 2011, while Woods Knee-Diep ran in the funk of public shame, endless injuries and a broken swing, the door waved open to players who were desperately looking for space in large tournaments. A 41-year-old Phil Mickelson won the Masters 2010. Then McDowell became the first European to win the US Open since 1970. Louis Oosthuizen won the Open. Martin Kaymer won the PGA championship. The Masters 2011 was claimed by Charl Schwartzel. Suddenly the sport had something that looked like parity.
But then McIlroy came. The Wonderkind from Little Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, was appointed as the European Ryder Cup team of 2010 on 21. Then the Dennenstro in Augusta shook rounds of 65-69-70 before he showed his age with a infamous last round 80 in the Masters 2011 but then happened. There was nowhere to run.
Since then, the entire adult life of McIlroy – every moment is personally and every swing professionally – combed, covered and cataloged.
Adopted as the next, McIlroy played in the longest second conceivable scene instead. From 2015 to 2024, his 21 top 10 Finishes in Majors were the most ever for a player in 10 years without winning. From 2020 to the start of this week, he owned the best weekend score for the most important championships of every player. He was somehow 0-out-19.
Those big McIlroy had to keep waiting next to, meanwhile. Nobody gave it if McIlroy filled whole rooms with FedEx Cup points, as long as his last big win in the Barnsteen of 2014 remained, nothing else mattered.
Without a victory of the masters, McIlroy would forever be limited to those best-to-have-now-space. A place that is well known by Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Nick Price, Brooks Koepka and others.
Without a victory of the masters, he would watch life from outside the Grand Slam forever. It would remain Nicklaus, Woods, Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen. One chair pushed the table out, but still empty.
Every passing year only made it worse.
Do you want to talk about pressure?
Before the 2023 Masters, Woods would sooner or later win at Augusta.
“He will do that,” Woods said. “It’s just a matter of time. Rory has the talent. He has the game. He has all the tools to win here.”
Arriving in Augusta that same week, the question was inevitable, so McIlroy answered it. “I feel that I am just as good, if not a player better, because I was the last time I won a big championship,” he said. “So I feel pretty good about it.”
Then he shot rounds of 72 and 77 and missed the cut.
Rory McIlroy almost caught up with the pressure on Sunday. (Andrew Redington / Getty images)
McIlroy’s talent has always been all of him. That has also been this charge that he has worn.
Because sometimes as uncomfortable as Sunday was, every moment feels too fitting. McIlroy started the day opposite Bryson Deschambeau, a human cyber truck that can hit the ball just as far and can pull just as big. McIlroy responded by turning an opening with two shots into a one -off shortage into just 33 minutes. Two holes and 26 minutes later, McIlroy was somehow back in the lead by a stroke. Then at four strokes. Then five.
For a moment it seemed that Augusta de Dark Angels may not call before the end of the day.
Instead, it was perhaps the worst pitch -shot of McIlroy’s career along the front of No. 13 and he pulled down in the water. A double bogey, are fourth of the week.
Do you want to talk about pressure?
Nobody ever won a masters with four double bogeys until this week. How can this happen? Augusta Wervelde in place, so quickly, so slowly, all at the same time. Moments flashed.
At 5:38 pm McIlroy and Rose unexplained on top of the rankings. At 5:51 a blow rose. At 5:57, a three -way draw including Ludvig Åberg. At 6:10, perhaps the largest 7-iron of the life of McIlroy, which leads to Birdie on 15. At 6:14, a 20-foot Birdie Putt from Rose Rams in the 18th hole. At 6:53, a missed McIlroy par on 18 and a moan that if things had gone in a different way, would have lasted forever.
But then, a hinge in history.
McILROY BIRDIED The first play -off hole. Rose didn’t do that.
An exhalation strong enough to exhaust everything for it.
“The best day of my golf life,” McIlroy called later on Sunday. “I am proud to never give up. I am proud of how I kept coming back and fulfilling myself and not really leting the disappointments come to me.”
On the other side of that tunnel of fans, who looked like an Irish Andy Dufesne, McIlroy eventually hit without people to hug. He put in his place and saw everything for the first time, as he realized where he was and what had just happened.
By releasing heavy pants, McIlroy let everyone know: “Okay, I have to get a green jacket”, and turned to the clubhouse. Many people were waiting for him.
(Top photo: Richard Heathcote / Getty images)