Even Justin Rose knew that Rory McIlroy would not miss that putt on the playoff hole, but when the putt finally dropped, eleven years worth of emotion poured out of McIlroy onto the 18th green. The burden he had carried since winning the 2014 PGA Championship in the park was lifted.
After eleven years and 73 holes McIlroy finally won his fifth major and fittingly it came at the site of his first ever major heartbreak. Fourteen years ago a scar was etched into the soul of McIlroy and it’s one that has magically been washed away as the 35-year-old became immortal as just the sixth golfer ever to complete the career grand slam.
Nobody has rolled the dice as often as McIlroy, but he is the most human of any sportsperson to walk this planet, he wears his emotions and when he collapsed on the 18th green, this place that was once his hell became his heaven.
“I think I’ve carried that burden since August 2014. It’s nearly 11 years. And not just about winning my next major, but the career Grand Slam. You know, 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,” McIlroy said in his press conference.
“Yeah, it’s been difficult, and I’ve tried to approach this tournament with the most positive attitude each and every time that I’ve shown up, and I think just the sort of cumulative experience that I’ve gained coming back here each and every year, I just I feel like I get a little more comfortable with the shot needed. I talked about it at the start of the week, but you know, there’s talking about it and actually doing it.
“And yeah, today was — today was difficult. I was unbelievably nervous this morning. Really nervous on the first hole, as you witnessed with the double, but as I said, that sort of calmed me down and I was able to bounce back and show that resilience that I’ve talked about a lot.
“Yeah, look, it was a heavy weight to carry, and thankfully now I don’t have to carry it and it frees me up and I know I’m coming back here every year, which is lovely.”
This was a far from perfect final round. But was it ever going to be?
McIlroy has become a far more mature player than the one who won four majors by the age of 25 and looked set to have a brush with Tiger Woods’ modern day records.
Two wins with his ‘B’ game this season at Pebble Beach and TPC Sawgrass as well as a decade plus long wait for a major title show how resilient McIlroy has become.
This resilience was shown by his four double bogeys. Nobody had won the Masters after making four double bogeys or worse. Probably the last well McIlroy had yet to visit on his journey to major glory again.
But such is his refusal to say die, he kept coming back. A calamity off the tee, he was Houdini from the trees and he never lay down after flirting with disaster on several occasions during a rollercoaster five hours.
In 2011, McIlroy let a four shot lead slip at Augusta National and who knows what would have happened had he converted that lead for his first major gong.
Since then each drive up Magnolia Lane on Masters Monday has been a reminder of what might have been, but this tournament resembles the best of McIlroy’s resilience and he was finally rewarded.
A younger McIlroy wasn’t ready to win the Masters. He was more than ready this time around.
Reflecting on the man he was fourteen years ago he said: “I would see a young man that didn’t really know a whole lot about the world. I would — yeah, I’d say I probably would see a young man with a lot of learning to do and a lot of growing up to do, and also — so I would — and maybe I probably didn’t understand myself. I didn’t understand why I got myself in a great position in 2011, and I probably didn’t understand why I let it slip in a way. But I think just having a little more self-reflection.
“You know, that experience, going through the hardships of tough losses and all that, and I would say to him, just stay the course. Just keep believing. And I would say that to any young boy or girl that’s listening to this. I’ve literally made my dreams come true today, and I would say to every boy and girl listening to this, believe in your dreams, and if you work hard enough and if you put the effort in, that you can achieve anything you want.”
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