Rory McIlroy wins the most entertaining Masters ever
Better than Tiger’s? Better than Jack’s? Not exactly. Just different.
It cannot be the most compelling Masters in the tournament’s 89- year history because that one belongs to Tiger Woods, a 21-year-old Black man who imploded the golf world with his record 12-stroke win in 1997.
It cannot be the most sentimental, because that belongs to Jack Nicklaus, who won his record sixth Green Jacket in 1986 at the age of 46, 11 years after his last Masters win and five years after his last win in a major.
But it can be the most entertaining Masters ever. Rory McIlroy coughed up a 4-shot lead, then coughed up a 2-shot lead, and did so by hitting horrid wedge shots from prime positions on Nos. 13 and 18, which put him in a playoff with Justin Rose. In the middle of it all he hit approaches to Nos. 15 and 17 that will forever live in major championship lore. He then ultimately won it in a playoff with — what else? — a brilliant wedge shot, as well as the sort of gimme putt that cost him last year’s U.S. Open.
McIlroy now is the sixth man to win all four major tournaments and complete the career Grand Slam, a feat that seemed inevitable when he won the PGA Championship 11 years ago, but a feat that seemed less and less likely with each passing year and, on Sunday, with each passing hole.
He refused to chat with playing partner Bryson DeChambeau, the best golfer on the rival LIV Tour, who profited from McIlroy’s U.S. Open collapse at Pinehurst last year. It was intense.
In the end, McIlroy admitted that, even at the expense of the British Open, “This, by far, the greatest golf tournament in the world,” and said “My dreams have been made today.”
He did this four days after his 4-year-old daughter, Poppy, made a 25-foot putt on the final hole of family-friendly par-3 tournament, and, after he did this, he told Poppy, sitting greenside, “Never give up on your dreams. Never, ever give up on your dreams.”