Rory McIlroy’s stirring triumph at Augusta National was meaningful in many ways.
The Masters win allowed McIlroy to achieve a lifelong dream by conquering his demons, made him the sixth person in history to complete the career Grand Slam and finally gave him a major championship victory with his childhood friend, Harry Diamond, on the bag.
“I’ve known Harry since I was seven years old,” McIlroy said that Sunday evening. “We’ve had so many good times together.
“To be able to share this with him after all the close calls that we’ve had, all the crap that he’s had to take from people that don’t know anything about the game, yeah, this one is just as much his as it is mine.”
In the months following his Masters win, McIlroy has talked about wanting to win the other majors with Diamond, and to do so at cathedrals like Pebble Beach and the Old Course at St. Andrews. McIlroy and Diamond have now accomplished everything together. While there’s surely more to come, McIlroy’s right-hand man gave him a fitting gift at the Australian Open to commemorate their momentous Masters victory: an Augusta National scorecard signed by all of the career Grand Slam winners.
“Harry gave this to me sort of like an early Christmas present in Australia,” McIlroy told The Shotgun Start. “He brought me this with a Sharpie and said, ‘Do you want to sign it?’ And I said, ‘No, absolutely not.’
“I said, ‘I just hope I don’t have to get Scottie [Scheffler] to sign it next year.”
Diamond has been much-maligned during his run on McIlroy’s bag, but he more than proved his worth on that Sunday at Augusta National.
After McIlroy missed a five-footer on the 18th hole to win, he and Diamond gathered behind the clubhouse as they prepared for a playoff with Justin Rose. That’s when Diamond delivered a message that allowed a shell-shocked McIlroy to flush a turbulent 18 holes and get right for his duel with Rose.
“He said to me, ‘Well, pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning,’” McIlroy said in his victory presser at Augusta. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely we would have.’ That was an easy reset. He basically said to me, ‘Look, you would have given your right arm to be in a playoff at the start of the week.’ So that reframed it a little bit for me.”
The rest is history.
McIlroy striped his tee shot and stuffed his approach shot in tight for a career-defining and Grand Slam-clinching birdie.
A round that started with McIlroy preparing for an 18-hole bout with Bryson DeChambeau ended with McIlroy having to conquer his own ghosts to finally don the green jacket. It was never going to happen any other way.
“If I was ever going to do it at Augusta, it was always going to be that way,” McIlroy told The Shotgun Start. “Just throwing up all over myself the last few holes.”
McIlroy and Diamond survived a roller-coaster back nine to etch their names into golf history, regardless of whether or not McIlroy decides to sign the scorecard.
This article originated on Golf.com
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