Rory McIlroy finally won the Masters, winning Green Jack

Augusta, Georgia – A putter wins the Masters. Can you do it? How about a 5-foot one? This will put the weight of the world away from your shoulders. It will get you into history books. A green coat for a lifetime? You understand, too.

But it was late in the day, almost 7 o’clock, and these vegetables were becoming smooth. They’ve been illuminated quickly and now you have thousands of customers breathing around your neck. Can you do it? What about pressure? nerve? pressure?

Experts will tell you that this kind of stress is good. This means you are at its thickness and are about to do something meaningful. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy – Augusta National has nothing, and certainly not when the Masters are online.

If you missed the putter, how would you respond? What if, to some extent, you have a second chance?

Your latest master champion, Rory McIlroy, faces all these issues on Sunday.

Ultimately, it was the most important day in his golf life.

***

How do you fall asleep while one of the biggest days of your life is waiting? There is a story from more than 100 years ago when Walter Hagen and Mike Brady were in the 1919 U.S. Open playoffs. Hagen quipped in the club where he was happy in the morning, “He may be in bed, but he wasn’t sleeping.”

McIlroy Fierce. He has no appetite and his stomach is very thick. His legs felt like jelly.

“It’s a fight where you try to stay in the moment you are now and play the next shot, and play the next shot,” he said. “That’s the fight today. My fight is with me today. It’s not with other people.”

He has been here before. Just like at St. Andrews’ 2022 Open, McIlroy can see the rankings from his Rusacks Hotel Room when he gets ahead after 54 holes. How can you not look at the windows and think about how your life will change?

“Of course, you have to let yourself dream,” he said. “You have to let yourself think about it and what it looks like.”

McIlroy has been dreaming about it for a while. He has been stuck in four majors since 2014 and still needs masters to complete a professional grand slam. Despite McIlroy’s big heartbroken record, he entered four of his six 54-hole major leaders or co-leaders this week. His only solo leader without a conversion? Fourteen years ago, in the 2011 Masters, he shot 81 from the last round.

“That was 14 years ago,” he said. “I’m glad my memory is short.”

***

The venue was buzzing at 2:25 p.m. Sunday. It’s almost impossible to see anything on the 1st T-shirt. Good day and be a 6-foot-2 good one.

A man on the ladder works on the main scoreboard of the first fairway, to the right of the first fairway, watching the final paired serve. He smiled as he saw the golfer see the ocean of pastels along the fairway.

Although the ladder man may still not be able to get a good angle on McIlroy’s drive, the latter found the fairway bunker. He exploded the short-lived fragments and hit 18 feet. You don’t need to see the putter to know he missed it. twice. Every crowd groaned.

This heavyweight competition was a hole. On the second fairway, the scoreboard flashes the score of the last pair. Mobile phones are not allowed here, so that’s how you find out who is winning. This and roar.

“What happened?” asked a customer.

“Rory’s three-pointer, causing twice the amount.” “It’s ugly.”

McIlroy drove it into the No. 2 T-shirt and settled down. DeChambeau birdie led by one shot.

“The first thing that popped up my mind on foot to the second tee was a couple of years ago when Jon Rahm scored double wins and then went on to win,” McIlroy said. “So at least my idea was in the right place, at least I thought positively about it.”

Then McIlroy started throwing some punches. He has both 3 and 4 birds; DeChambeau bogey. This is the second and third two-shot fluctuations in the first four holes.

“It will be a great battle,” said one patron.

He was right, for a while. The host customer deserves a good Sunday. Scottie Scheffler stood out in the last nine games last year. Jon Rahm did it last year. Three years ago, Schefler won a laugh. You have to go back to 2021, when the final winners Hideki Matsuyama and Will Zalatoris fought in the last pairing on Sunday to find the end that was actually very close. But even the final hit win edge, it makes it look much closer than it actually is.

Customers are invested, flooding the area around the ropes and overflowing cups from the crow’s nest, trying to ride on the jockey. And, without Tiger Woods, there isn’t even that kind of magnetism steals all customers on the other side of the route.

They both followed McIlroy and Golf’s best new competition, passing four holes before McIlroy made the bird on September 9.

They led four to the second ninth with McIlroy. Corner Amen is waiting…but McIlroy has been in this position before.

***

Last June, McIlroy skated out of the Pinehurst resort parking lot. A few minutes ago, he watched from a scoring room podium, his hat was still bent, a common sign that he had just experienced hell. He groaned in three of his last four games, including short fives of 16 and 18, and beat DeChambeau one hit.

“I looked back that day that day, just like I looked back on the toughest moments of my career, I would learn a lot from it and hope to make good use of it,” he said in Scotland a month later. “It’s the subject of my entire career.

It can be said that this is the biggest major injury in his career. St. Andrews was in 2022 when he lost with nine matches and nine points. Then there was the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, when he led five games with five and lost again.

Two years ago at LACC, McIlroy was asked how he was trade Disappointing, but if it encounters tiring answers about disappointment.

“Yes, but at the same time, it’s going to be very, very sweet when I finally win the next major,” he said. “I’m going to go through 100 Sundays like this to get another big title.”

***

In 2011, McIlroy walked to the tenth tee The Augusta Nationals took a one-shot lead and scored 43 in the back nine. Later that summer, he won the U.S. Open, but Master Scar tissue remains.

Now, things are different. He said he was a different golfer—a more complete version of himself. He collaborated with sports psychologist Bob Rotella and talked about pursuing a feeling. The back of his dock book was written with notes, helping to keep him foamy. He glanced at them walking randomly on the fairway.

He Birds 10 raised the lead to 4, but on the 13th he made an unforgivable mistake. McIlroy kept the conservative, hitting 3 woods and 7 irons for easy layups-then flipped the wedge to Rae’s Creek and made Double Bogey the fourth time of the week. There were a few holes ahead, Justin Rose went down, just to 15 and 16 years old.

At 14, McIlroy missed the fairway, missed the green, and then missed the par’s short putt to put it on the edge. But Ross followed McIlroy’s bogey, one of his own, failed to play around at the age of 17. After Ludvig Aberg Birds were 15 years old, there was a three-way tie on the top of the mountain, although he did not stay on it. But Ross did it.

The Olympic gold medalist ran out of a 20-foot player for the Birds on the 18th to take the clubhouse lead. There were two holes behind and McIlroy heard the roar.

McIlroy just hit one of the best shots of the day, and the birdie was hit by two. Now he ranks 16 and has two holes. Playing them under one will win the Masters. Even in the playoffs. Worse than this? Well, you know…it’s even more heartbreaking.

McIlroy was even more shaky in Game 29, but he hit an 8-iron a few feet away, making the birdie at 17. But after he found the fairway, his method landed in the bunker. He splashed and needed to ship putts from 5 feet to win the Masters. The customer held his breath as he pulled back the push rod.

***

You probably know that McIlroy has done it now no Make putting rods. But he had another chance, another chance to win the Masters.

Ross (66) and McIlroy (73) returned to the 18th tee, under 11 years old. Rose hit 15 feet away. McIlroy to 4 feet. Ross missed it. This time, McIlroy didn’t.

This time, Rory McIlroy Sobbing. Life is the second chance to make the most of you, and McIlroy makes money. Ironically, putters missed roughly the same distance at last year’s U.S. Open. Only in this version did he do it, throwing the putter into the air, putting his hands on his head, kneeling and crying.

“It’s all relief,” McIlroy said. “There’s not a lot of joy in this reaction. It’s all comforting. The joy comes soon. But I’ve been here for 17 years, and it’s the emotion I’ve been there for more than a decade.”

McIlroy walked to the scoring zone as his wife and daughter lag behind him. He screamed, hugged, raised and hugged others along the way. Finally, when he was done, he shouted to a group of friends.

“I’m going to buy a green jacket!”