By Ben Rosen
Rory McIlroy needed a 73rd hole to win the 2025 Masters Tournament, but after an 11-year wait, he has joined golf’s exclusive Grand Slam champion club. McIlroy is the first men’s golfer to have won all four majors since Tiger Woods in 2000. Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen are the others who have done it.
“The long journey is over,” Jim Nantz said on the CBS broadcast after McIlroy made the winning putt in the playoff. “McIlroy has his masterpiece.”
It took McIlroy a record-tying 11 years between major wins after having won four between 2011 and 2014. McIlroy finished second or tied for second in a major four times in between those wins.
McIlroy also became the first player to win the Masters after having recorded four or more double bogeys. Woods was the last player to win any major, the 2008 U.S. Open, with that many double bogeys before McIlroy’s Masters win.
“It was all relief,” said McIlroy about his reaction after making the winning putt. “There wasn’t much joy in that reaction.”
Justin Rose and McIlroy were tied at 11-under par after 72 holes. As a result, they went to a sudden-death playoff that would start at the 18th hole. If a second hole was needed, they would go to the 10th hole and go back and forth between the two holes until there was a winner. McIlroy only needed one hole to win the first playoff at the event since 2017.
“Just a complete roller coaster of emotions,” McIlroy said on Masters.com. “What came out of me on the last green there in the playoff was at least 11 years, if not 14 years, of pent-up emotion.”
The 14 years references the 2011 Masters, where McIlroy held a four-stroke lead heading into the final round but ended up finishing tied for 15th.
“You’ve had Jack, Gary, Tom, Tiger, you name it, all come through here, and all say that I’ll win the Masters one day,” McIlroy said on The Athletic. “That’s a hard load to carry.”
Rose finished second to Sergio Garcia in that 2017 playoff. As noted by Bill Fields of Masters.com, Rose and Hogan are the lone male golfers to lose multiple playoffs at the Masters.
“Today I hit a lot of quality shots under pressure, and I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger and stronger as the round was going on,” Rose said on Masters.com. “I felt so good with my game, good with my emotions, and I’m super proud of that.”
Rose has one major win that came at the 2013 U.S. Open. This marks the fifth time Rose has finished second in a major that would advance his quest to be a Grand Slam champion. Of those five second-place finishes, three of them have come at Augusta National Golf Club.
Bryson DeChambeau was in the final pairing with McIlroy and started the final round two strokes behind. DeChambeau would end up finishing tied for fifth.
“If I just had somewhat of good iron play this week, it would have been a lot different outcome,” DeChambeau said to The Associated Press. “It just wasn’t tight, wasn’t dialed in.”
DeChambeau said the speed of the greens across the course played a role in his final-round performance.
“I just didn’t realize how firm and fast it could get out here,” DeChambeau said. “Won’t let that happen again.”
DeChambeau will have to wait, as McIlroy did for so many years, to add a green jacket to his list of accomplishments.
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Thumbnail image caption: Rory McIlroy. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
