Inside the final round of Rory McIlroy’s 2025 Masters victory (part 3)

(Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part centerpiece about Rory McIlroy’s 2025 Masters victory. Here was the opening piece and here is the second part. This article originally ran as one in the first 2026 edition of Golfweek magazine.)

The 89th Masters was far from settled when Rory McIlroy steered his drive into the left side of the fairway at Firethorn, the par-5 15th, and had overhanging pine branches interfering with his direct line of attack. Padraig Harrington, who was glued to his TV set in Ireland, observed that playing conservatively was McIlroy’s kryptonite, but the aggressive play was right in his wheelhouse and he conjured up a daring, slinging 7-iron from 207 yards that hooked some 20 yards around limbs and pine needles and rolled 6 feet from the cup.

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“That shot was definitely Monte Carlo or bust,” said Nick Faldo, who served as lead analyst for Sky TV’s Masters coverage in Europe. “I think that was right up there in the top half-a-dozen greatest shots we’ve seen over the years, and, more importantly for him, the greatest seven-iron he’s hit in his life.”

To hear McIlroy recount the 15th hole contained some of the best nuggets Faxon hadn’t heard. For the first time all day, McIlroy had outdriven Bryson DeChambeau, which meant he would play second into the green. DeChambeau’s last-ditch effort to mount a charge flew at the flag, but the wind picked up and his ball hit the bank and rolled back into the water. McIlroy took notice and switched from 8-iron to 7-iron, and that made all the difference.

“If I hadn’t seen Bryson hit first,” McIlroy said, “I definitely would have hit my second shot in the water.”

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Almost forgotten in the aftermath of such brilliance is the fact that McIlroy missed the eagle putt but still regained the lead at 11 under. At Redbud, the par-3 16th, he drilled another beauty to 9 feet but failed to convert his birdie effort. Not Justin Rose – after a bogey at 17, he curled in a 20-footer for his 10th birdie of the round and 66 to claim the clubhouse lead.

Gary Player had been rooting for McIlroy

Gary Player, who had been rooting for McIlroy to join him as the sixth member of the career Grand Slam club, watched the final round from his rental home close to Augusta, surrounded by friends and guests. He called it one of the most unusual Masters he’d ever witnessed.

“It was a true yo-yo of emotions. One moment, I was certain he would win. The next, I thought he had lost it,” Player said. “He had us all on pins and needles.”

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Tied again, McIlroy stepped on an 8-iron at Nandina, the par-4 17th, that trickled to 2 feet. “Absolutely stone cold,” said Player. “The 17th green is one of the hardest on the course, and to birdie it under that pressure was extraordinary.”

Brad Faxon, later asking McIlroy questions at his annual summit, an event he hosts with all his partners at Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia, couldn’t resist asking one more: of the three iron shots he’d hit on Nos. 15, 16 and 17, did he think one was better than the other?

“Well, everybody’s going to think the one on 15 was the best, but I was proudest of the one on 16 because that was the 50th anniversary of (Jack) Nicklaus’s back-right hole location,” McIlroy said of how in 1975 the Golden Bear rolled in a 40-foot uphill, sidewinder that spurred him to his fifth of six Green Jackets. “To hit that hole high, just right of the flag … that was one of the best shots I hit all day.”

Nursing a one-stroke lead and looking as if the elusive Green Jacket finally would be his, McIlroy improbably dumped an easy flip wedge from 125 yards into the right greenside bunker that immediately became a candidate for the worst shot of the day. He missed a 5-foot par putt for the win on the low side and it was off to a playoff.

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“I never thought it would break as much as it did,” McIlroy told Faxon.

If McIlroy’s head was spinning, two moments before the playoff reframed his disposition. First, a pep talk from Harry Diamond the caddie, who reminded him that they would have taken a playoff when they arrived at Augusta on Monday morning. Then they hopped into a golf cart to go to the 18th tee and Jason Ballard, the director of golf at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., a friendly face who he knew through his wife being raised there and a member of the club, happened to be behind the wheel.

“I felt something good about that,” McIlroy said.

They drove down a path to the left of 10. The silence was broken only by birds singing, and it relaxed him. Rose remembered feeling rushed when he lost a playoff to Sergio Garcia in 2017 and took his sweet time arriving, showing up four minutes late to the tee. McIlroy ripped his driver 30 yards past Rose, who responded with a beautiful approach.

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“Did you know how close it was?” Faxon asked.

“We heard the roar,” McIlroy said. “We knew it was a little past the flag, but we didn’t know how close it was.”

Faxon inquired about his second shot from 125 yards – same yardage, same gap wedge as before but from a perfect lie this time.

“I was so pumped up that it flew farther, and it was a lucky break because it allowed it to climb the hill and come back down all the way to 2 feet,” McIlroy said.

What surprised McIlroy when he arrived at the green was that Rose’s ball had gone 17 feet past the hole. He expected it to be closer. “So, you’re standing, waiting for Justin to putt, how soon after he hit it did you realize he had missed?” Faxon asked.

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“That’s funny because I was standing in a spot behind him and as soon as he hit it, I knew he had missed it on the high side,” McIlroy said.

This time, McIlroy wasn’t nervous. “I was in control and then I was screaming guttural at the top of my lungs,” he said.

McIlroy raised his putter to the sky and tossed it in the air, then he buckled, collapsing to his knees and lowering his forehead to the green. He was a Masters champion at last.

“What place is capable of reducing a man to rubble like that but in the best possible way?” ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said. Before he and McIlroy parted ways during a pre-tournament interview, Van Pelt had told him, “Every man has his time and I think this is yours.”

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“When you saw him fall to his knees,” he continued, “I said to somebody, sometimes in life you don’t realize how much water you’re holding back until you let the dam burst, and that burst of emotion was just astounding.”

Almost as astounding as Faxon figuring he asked at least a dozen open-ended questions and letting McIlroy expound at will to his audience of confidantes. Five minutes became 40 and Faxon wondered if he had overstepped his bounds. That is, until PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan wandered over to him when it was all said and done and washed away any concern:

“I could have listened to that for another hour,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Inside the final round of Rory McIlroy’s 2025 Masters victory (part 3)