A Look Back at the 2025 Masters | The Story of Rory McIlroy and the 89th Masters Tournament

Revisit and relive the storylines from the 89th Masters Tournament, where Rory McIlroy captured the Green Jacket and completed the career Grand Slam.

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Since 1934, the Masters Tournament has been home to some of golf’s greatest moments. Amidst blooming azaleas, towering pines and flowering dogwoods, the first full week of April ushers in a stage unique to golf and to sport. Over four days and 72 holes, the smallest field in major championship golf competes for a chance to capture the Green Jacket and a place in Masters history.

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On a beautiful spring day, Carla Bernat Escuder started the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amitter. One back of the lead and with her hands full, she was chasing the number one ranked amateur player in the world, the defending champion, Lahi Wde. But Escuder promptly turned golf into a thrilling game of hideand seek. Four birdies on the first nine, another two coming home. The day’s most pivotal score, though, might have been her parave on number 10. That was a good play from there. Smart. What a save to maintain the lead. Three straight 68s this week and the 21-year-old Spaniard walked away with the title of her dreams. And another Spaniard shines at Augusta National. Carla Bernard Escair takes the title. The day though was hardly without drama. Much of it provided by a 16-year-old who right from the start with her eagle at number one made it clear that a young woman named Asterisk would be anything but a footnote. What a moment. Asterisk Tally was runner up at both the US girls and women’s amateurs, but said that second place here is the highlight above all. Barely old enough to drive, she seemed cool beyond her years, especially with this birdie on 17 that she Houdini from the trees. A terrific play that is. What a three. What a three. In just 6 years, the Augusta National Women’s Amin has skyrocketed to one of the most important women’s amateur golf events on the schedule. Over the years, Spanish golfers at Augusta National have distinguished themselves from Sevy and Sergio to Ali and Rahm. Now to that list, add one more. Hard to believe the drive chip and putt national finals has been around for 12 years. But there is something about this joyous celebration which unquestionably never gets old. Even if we understand that the celebrants soon will. Boys and girls each in four age groups. One player coming this year from as far away as India. Gay Rit Core Cologne. Quite a story about her family’s journey here. Plenty of parents are dedicated to their child’s success, but they take the cake, no doubt. And this year, what’s old is new again on the 50-year anniversary of what’s come to be known as the Magnificent Masters, where Jack Nicholas won his fifth green jacket after outdueling Tom Weissoff and Johnny Miller. Miller returned as a spectator to watch his grandson finish second in his age group. The boy’s name Nicholas. That’s N I C K L A U S. And repeating history this year, Alexandra Fun. Two years ago, she won the 10 and 11year-old girls division. This year, she won the competition for girls a 12 and 13. Fung just a part of the stunning display of talent from smooth and powerful swings to steely nerve. In the girls 14 and 15 division, four competitors poured in the final putt, a slippery 15-footer on Augusta Nationals 18th green with the title on the line. Conceptualized and run by the USGAA, the PGA of America, and the Masters Tournament, it is all part of what has come to be known as golf’s happiest day. A nod to the game’s future, one day before the business of the present gets underway. 51 weeks a year, Monday is like the tax collector. No one likes to see him coming. But one week a year, Monday is a welcome knock on the door. Today is that day. And it’s so good to be back. A life changer. Although with all the dances in your head, it kind of makes you feel like you never left in your life. Have you seen anything like that? But even if you’ve never been, it’s not about remembering as much as never being able to forget. Time to add something new to a catalog of memories that endure in a timeless and wonderful way. As the sun sets, you are one of two men. those with a seat at the table for the most famous meal in sports. Or one of those with his nose pressed up against an imaginary window, starving and thinking, “All I want is in.” It’s a thought that can make a man famished even if food is the last thing on his mind. Ben has won the masters. Of course, take care of business this week and you can spend the next 51 dreaming about a menu. Your menu. And doesn’t that sound mouthwatering? For Rory Mroy, this place is not just any place. People ask, “If you could only play one golf course for the rest of your life, what would it be?” And I think walking around this place every day would be pretty cool. I don’t think there’s a more beautiful golf course on earth. You’re playing golf in the prettiest park in the world. Basically, his love for Augusta National, the significance of a win for him here, and the fact that it hasn’t happened, all of it together has created an annual April crescendo. It’s just narratives. It’s just noise. And it’s just trying to block out that noise as much as possible. I need to treat this tournament like all the other tournaments that I play throughout the year. And I understand the narrative and the noise and you know there’s a lot of anticipation and buildup in coming into this tournament each and every year. But I just have to keep my head down and focus on my job. It is no small feat. Expectation is the burden of the accomplished and talented. Mroy won four majors before 26, but it’s now been 11 years since the last. The young phenom became the not so young phenom. All the while annually pursuing the missing piece of his career grand slam. Along the way, there have been heartaches, but lessons as well. The last few years, I’ve had chances to win some of the biggest golf tournaments the world, it hasn’t quite happened, but life moves on and you know, you dust yourself off and you go again. And when you have a long career like I have had luckily, you sort of just learn to roll with the punches, the good times, the bad times, knowing that if you do the right work and you practice the right way that you know those disappointments will turn into good times again pretty soon. A perfect description of his trajectory from last year’s major disappointment into this year’s so far impressive success. All of it part of the continuing narrative as Mroy chases his green jacket. This is picture day. The rarest of afternoons when golf offers few if any disappointments and instead a lot more magic. It is the perfect antidote for the anxiety that inevitably bubbles deep down. So, we’ve done the last few years and now it’s even more fun having the little little guy around. This takes the pressure off of you. You know that. That’s awesome. He’s way cuter. Nico Echavaria of Colombia won this year in a two-hole playoff over JJ Spawn. For the tournament as a whole, there were three aces. Famously, no player has ever won the par three contest and gone on to win the Masters. But the scoring and spectacular shotmaking on this carefree Wednesday afternoon make it clear. This is a memory everyone seems to want to preserve forever. Wouldn’t you? There didn’t seem to be any place you could look on Thursday that didn’t have a story worth telling. And it started at the top of the leaderboard. Justin Rose has been good here over two decades of play, but tantalizingly close has been the best he could manage. There have been six top 10s. He’s been the runner up twice, including once in a playoff to Sergio Garcia. His 65 Thursday now gives him the first round lead for a fifth time. That’s more than anyone else ever. A win here at 44 would make him the oldest firsttime Masters champion of all time. Had the energy going, had the feel going. Knew I was doing something pretty special. It felt like a bit of a no- hitter there for a while. One former champion defied age yet again. While another hit a shot so good it turned out to be bad. That 80. Oh, hold on. Oh my goodness. Oh, that is such bad luck. But for all the stories, two of them this week seem to have drawn the most attention. Not surprisingly, they are the stories of the top two ranked players in the world. A title for either would mean history. 10 previous times, Rory Mroy had driven down Magnolia Lane in early April trying to complete the career grand slam. But at 35, this is his first Masters where he arrived having already won twice in the young PGA Tour season. For 14 holes Thursday, it looked like he was simply taking up where he’d left off and then settle. Easy, careful, easy. This is headed for disaster. I can’t believe it. It’s gone. The four-time major champion dropped four shots over the last four holes. He is within sight of the lead. He’ll just have to squint to be able to see it. Only three men have ever successfully defended their Mast’s titles. Between them, they’ve won the green jacket 14 times. Two-time Masters champion Scotty Sheffller, who hohammed his way to a bogey-free 68 on Thursday, is hoping to join them. Next week, he will spend his 135th week as the world’s top ranked player, tying him for third most of all time. The way he’s playing, it’s hard to see an end to his rise up that list anytime soon. Alto told, the first page of the leaderboard is stopped with those who’ve won majors and those we could certainly see holding them soon. In other words, business as usual in the biggest of spots on a Thursday. Leaderboard gravity though will soon make things more clear. Dashing hopes for some, raising them for others, changing a life for one. Of all the stories this week that have presented themselves for inspection, and there are many, none have likely been the object of more relentless attention once again than Rory Mroy. And his pursuit of a green jacket again. This is right. Is it enough? What a shot. How about this second nine? 11 years, much of it at the top of his game. He has been chasing the career grand slam. All he has gotten is hard. But Friday, he was the picture of resilience. Not a single bogey in route to 66. He is two off the 36 hole lead. I just had to remind myself that I was playing well. You know, I I couldn’t let two bad holes, you know, sort of dictate the narrative of the 16 good ones. As much as the top of the leaderboard is always in sharp focus, Friday at the Masters draws our eyes to the cut. And this year, narrowly missing, a feat remarkable in and of itself, was 67year-old Bernard Langanger. Playing in his 41st and final masters, he has been a wonder, making 27 cuts, recording nine top 10s, and of course, winning twice. From Anhazen, Germany to Augusta, Georgia. What a remarkable life. Langanger has a pair of green jackets. So too does the defending champion. Scotty Sheffller has been the model of consistency in his career so far. But battling through an uncharacteristic rough patch on Friday, he got a good break when his T-ball on 12 bounced out of the bushes, he promptly converted it into some entirely characteristic magic. Oh gosh. Oh my gosh. Is that left? Oh my goodness. Oh, there it comes. Came all the way out of that bush. He’s got a chance. Oh my goodness. He did it. What a massive break for the defending champion. It was one offering on the day’s buffet of brilliance. Now it is on to the weekend with major champions like Bryson Dashambo and Jason Day in hot pursuit along with proven winners like Terrell Hatton and Cory Connors. Men who are searching for that first career definfining win. Another chapter soon to be written in a glorious history of a special place. It won’t be long now. The weekend. Everywhere else the place we go to relax, leave work and worry behind. Not here. Maybe you can appreciate. Look around with wonder. But relax? Not likely. Not with what you figure might be in your grasp. But getting ahead of yourself is a fool’s errand. Thinking about the finish line is just a prescription for arriving there in anything but the way you want to, desperately want to. It’s the weekend. The race is on. And you had better keep running. Scoring as Saturday’s third round unfolded was dizzying. But the problem with having a good round, as several were, is playing against someone who is having a great one. Rory Mroy, who started the day two shots off the lead, served notice with his very first shot of the day. His drive on the opening hole flew nearly 20 yards beyond where anyone else in the field had hit it. From there, it was simply one flex after another. He’s out of his mind right now. In search of the final credential to make him only the sixth man to ever achieve a career grand slam, he began the day with six consecutive threes. All to the soundtrack of adoring roars everywhere he went. Threes are still wild. By the seventh hole, he had a fourshot lead. Is it moving day or Maroy day for the most part? It’s hard when he is in the mix around here. For the biggest story not to be Mroy. What’s at stake is well known. So too is the heartache he’s endured. Mroy cooled down mid round on Saturday and survived a rough middle stretch. But then on a hole which had been the low point of his week thus far, the scene of his double bogey in round one, some revenge. Big time eagle Rory Maroy suddenly burst forward in front at the Masters. There were other stories on Saturday. 49-year-old Zack Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, went out early and shot 66. Two-time US Open champion Bryson Dambo gamely kept on Mroyy’s tail. Impossible. So too did Cory Connors and Justin Rose. But in the end, they were just sidebars. The story of Sunday at the Masters is always a big one. This year it sets up to be one of the biggest we have seen in golf in a long, long time. Today is about the weight, the lightweight of an elegant green jacket, the heavy weight of expectation. The former you’ve no doubt dreamed of slipping into. Perhaps the latter you’ve only hoped to shed. The weight of this day is massive. And the weight for this day has seemed interminable. But isn’t that the way it goes when something means this much? Benshaw has won the Masters for a second. Either way, the wait is over. Four, please. Now driving. Of course, this day was about so much more than just two people, but going in, it sure didn’t feel that way. There was a bit of Ali Frasier in the air. For Rory Mroy and Bryson Dashambo, the most recent chapter had come at last year’s US Open, and it gave us all the drama we can imagine. It came down to the final hole with notes of excellence and devastation. And now here they were again. Mroy with a two-shot overnight lead. They climbed through the ropes. 15 minutes later though, they were even. That is a six. Like a boxer taking blows, Mroy seemed to be reeling. For 11 years, from one disappointment to another, he had chased the completion of an elusive career grand slam, trying to become only the sixth man in history to accomplish the feat. Now, it seemed to be slipping through his fingers again. But his ability to be resilient, something he said he was proud of, had already been on display this week. Mroy bounced back from two late first round doubles to shoot a pair of 66s and on the third hole he rose from the canvas again and punched back. Birdie for Meccroy. He seized back the lead and even if those gathered around the course couldn’t watch every stroke like keeping up with a faraway prize fight on some internet app, they were following every development. Dashambo soon staggered, but shockingly so too did Mroy. The lead was gone. The unthinkable just happened. Meanwhile, up ahead, Justin Rose, the man who’d led after the first two rounds, had jumped into the fight with a closing 32. He birdied the 72nd hole. He’s got a chance. Oh, wow. Oh, what a putt. Justin Rose at the 72nd. No lead is safe around here. When Mroy closed with a bogey, the tournament went to a playoff for the first time in 8 years. I’ve never seen anything quite as head spinning as what this final round has produced. With the resolution that soon followed, all that was left was the flood of emotion befitting a talented man who had wrestled adversity and disappointment and expectation for more than a decade. During the course of a championship week, you’re always going to have setbacks. You’re always going to have things that don’t go right. Whether you hit a ball in the water or you make a double or whatever it is, I didn’t let it seep into my mind of like, oh, this isn’t going to be my day. It was more I made a double on one. The first thing that came to my mind was, well, John Ram made a double on one and 23 and he went on to win. So, it’s just every time I did something, it was replaced by a positive thought straight away. And I think that was the difference. How many adversities has he bounced back from starting Thursday and in this round starting at the first and bounced back every time? It’s amazing to think that what happened on Thursday with the chip in the ball in the water making a seven. title. Easy. Careful. Easy. This is headed for disaster. I can’t believe it. It’s gone. And then how I played that hole for the last 3 days, you know, I played it in four under par. The two iron shots on Saturday and on Sunday. Big time eagle. That seven iron was a huge shot in the course of the tournament and what it meant. Is this enough? It is. Oh, here it comes. I’ve always loved 15. I’ve always loved that second shot. The shot of a lifetime. Are the two shots he’s hit into 15 this weekend any good? That hole was very good to me this week. There’s been highs, there’s been lows, there’s been everything in between. There’s been weeks where I’ve walked away from here not wanting to talk to the masters for a while, but then there’s been times where I’ve been excited to come back and and try again. It’s went from a complicated relationship to a quite an uncomplicated relationship. The long journey is over. Maroy has his masterpiece. You never know what’s going to happen in those moments. And yeah, it was just it was the emotion of a decade plus that just came pouring out of relief and joy and just that I had finally done it. That feeling of being able to get it done just not for myself but for a lot of other people as well. just amazing to have my name alongside Tiger and Jack, the two greatest competitors, Gary, Ben Hogan, Jean SARS. I mean, it is just beyond my wildest dreams and I’m I’m very proud of myself and I feel very fortunate and very lucky that I’m able to be alongside those guys. I’ve always loved this golf course. I’ve always loved the golf club, the membership, the traditions, the history, you know, everything that’s good about golf this club represents. To know that you can come back to Augusta National every year as a M’s champion, get to use that champions locker room, get to go to the champions dinner on the Tuesday night. Honestly, as a golfer, that is the greatest honor and privilege that can be bestowed upon you. Absolutely amazing.