It was not simply staring down Bryson DeChambeau that made Rory McIlroy’s triumph at The Masters on Sunday evening one of the greatest and most courageous victories in the history of golf. That duel almost seems like an afterthought now in the happy afterglow of the most thrilling edition of this tournament there has ever been.
It was not simply that McIlroy recovered from a terrible start, so nervous he could barely grip the club, so nervous that he double-bogeyed the first hole, so nervous that he saw his two-shot lead curdle into a one-shot deficit by the time he walked off the second green, that elevated this into the realms of the epic.
It was not simply that he pulled off a miracle on the seventh, a wedge shot that rose through a line of six magnolia trees from a lie in the pine straw and came to rest nine feet from the hole, his version of Phil Mickelson’s shot from the woods on the 13th that won him the 2010 Masters, that made this a win for the ages.
And it was not simply that when he seemed to have thrown the tournament away for a second time, duffing a careless chip into the creek that guards the front of the 13th green, carding a double bogey and then seeing the charging Justin Rose draw level with him, McIlroy found a way to banish his demons by conjuring another masterpiece with an approach to the par 5 15th that brought him a birdie.
Or that when he seemed to have tossed a Green Jacket in the trash for a third time, missing a 6ft putt for par on the 18th, and casting himself into a sudden-death play-off with Justin Rose, he found it within himself to produce yet another moment of genius with a magnificent approach on the first play-off hole, the 18th, that left him with a 4ft putt for victory. This time, he nailed it before his emotions overwhelmed him and he began to weep.
‘You’ve won it once,’ Sir Alf Ramsey famously told his England team when they conceded a late equaliser at the end of normal time in the 1966 World Cup Final, ‘now go and win it again.’ Somebody may have said the same to McIlroy – twice – because that was exactly what he did.
Rory McIlroy had to overcome himself to win The Masters, making his triumph so special
The Northern Irishman has endured an 11-year gap since his last Major, and many demons, too
He went to hug his wife Erica Stoll after a turbulent past year featuring a divorce U-turn
No, overcoming his opponents may have been a triumph in itself but what made the sight of McIlroy being fitted with a Green Jacket so special was that to get there at last, to become the first European golfer – and only the sixth of all-time – to complete the Grand Slam of golf’s majors, McIlroy had to overcome himself.
He had to conquer the demons that have been massing in his mind for the 11 years that have elapsed since he last won the last of his four Majors and the 14 years that have passed since he imploded on the back nine here at Augusta in 2011 and blew a four-shot lead.
And he had to quiet the voices that kept shouting, on the occasion of every brush with adversity, that he was a choker or a bottler and that his mental fragility meant that he would never, ever win a Major championship again.
To be called a ‘choker’ is the most grievous insult a sports star can face. It does not just undermine a player’s talent; it takes aim at their heart and their soul. It implies weakness and frailty and fragility when the stakes are highest. It damns a player and the shame of it sticks to them like tar.
Professional sport is littered with the corpses of reputations. Scott Norwood’s lies there somewhere, after the kicker missed a last-ditch field goal for the Buffalo Bills that handed Super Bowl XXV to the New York Giants in 1991.
So, too, does Bill Buckner’s, the Boston Red Sox first baseman, who found notoriety when he tried to field a routine hit during the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets but allowed the ball to roll through his legs and the Mets to win Game Six, and, later, the series. Some blamed Buckner’s error on extending the Curse of the Bambino for 18 more years.
Golf, because of the way it isolates its leading players in the spotlight, because of its solitary nature, is particularly well represented among the casualties. Jean van de Velde’s choke at The Open at Carnoustie in 1999 is a masterpiece of the genre. Greg Norman has never outrun losing a six-shot final round lead to Nick Faldo at The Masters in 1996.
And so it has been now for so long with McIlroy. Until this day. Until the Sunday of the 2025 edition of The Masters, the greatest golf tournament of them all, when the Northern Irishman changed everything.
He has overcome the haunting memory of his implosion on the back nine here in 2011
McIlroy edged out Justin Rose in a dramatic play-off after a riveting final few holes
He did not make it easy for himself on a Sunday which brought joy and tension
People thought Bryson DeChambeau would take him down, but McIlroy held his nerve
He wiped away the tears as his caddie, Henry Diamond, embraced him in the aftermath
McIlroy missed a bogey putt on the 18th hole, meaning he had to go through a play-off
But he made no mistakes in the ensuing battle with Rose, and the joy was clear to see
Rose missed a critical putt to give McIlroy the chance to claim victory at Augusta
DeChambeau was supposed to take him down. That’s what most people thought would happen. He was going to be the Faldo to McIlroy’s Norman. And McIlroy would be entombed forever in his boyish vulnerability and mocked for losing his nerve again when it mattered most.
‘Rory McIlroy just set up the most terrifying round of his life,’ one American newspaper headline read after DeChambeau had muscled his way into the final group. On television, analysis centred around DeChambeau as a ‘competitor’, which was code for not being a choker. Which was code for being the opposite of McIlroy.
In the end, it turned into just about the most terrifying round of DeChambeau’s life. If anyone choked, it was him. By the time they got past Amen Corner, DeChambeau was seven strokes behind McIlroy and had fallen off the bottom of the leaderboard
So much for a Duel in the Sun. When the two men stared at each other with their talent, DeChambeau blinked first and he blinked often.
And McIlroy? McIlroy steadied himself brilliantly after his shredding start. And then, when he made that mistake out of nowhere on the 13th, he steadied himself again. In fact, he did more than steady himself.
As the battle for the Green Jacket turned into a breathtaking thrill-ride of crazy vicissitudes, McIlroy produced that stunning approach into the 15th that he conjured from the depths of his despair and sank the birdie that put him back into the lead, one clear of Rose and Ludvig Aberg.
Even then it was not over. Rose pulled level with him at -11 and so McIlroy went back to the well one more time. He went back to that well that his critics said had run dry a decade ago and he came up with another shot of pure, pure brilliance to bring his approach at the 17th to within 5ft. He rolled in the putt for birdie.
Then came McIlroy’s miss on the 18th and the drama of the play-off. It was impossible not to feel for Rose, who has been the runner-up here three times now. That does not mean he is a choker. It just means that on this Sunday, he was beaten by a man who refused to beat himself. He was beaten, instead, by a man who overcame himself.
