It’s almost a year since Rory McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam with his victory at the Masters.
That would have been a hugely significant moment on its own, but McIlroy’s fifth Major title at Augusta National came after a gap of 11 years and a series of heartbreaks before finally winning the Green Jacket.
The final leaderboard of the 2025 edition offers the cold, hard fact that McIlroy got over the line via a first-hole playoff victory over Justin Rose.
However, anyone who witnessed the events unfold during a frenetic Sunday a year ago will know that it only reveals a fraction of the full story.
Thankfully, for anyone who either missed the action or wishes to relive it, The Masters has released an interview with McIlroy, where he provides a superb hole-by-hole breakdown of how the day played out from his perspective.
McIlroy begins with a little context, including a solid opening round tarnished by two double bogeys late on, which appeared to leave his chances of winning the Green Jacket hanging in the balance even at that early stage.
However, McIlroy hit back and, even admitting that he “rode his luck” on the back nine of the second round, he was firmly back in contention at the halfway stage.
Helped by a dream start on Saturday, by the end of the third round, McIlroy topped the leaderboard by two over his great rival, Bryson DeChambeau.
Perhaps haunted by near misses of the past, including a famous capitulation in the final round of the 2011 Masters, McIlroy admits in the video that, when he arrived at Augusta National on Sunday “the nerves started to hit me.”
Anyone who has followed McIlroy’s career will know that he rarely does things the easy way, and, sure enough, he proceeds to take viewers on a journey of what was surely the most nerve-shredding round of his career, beginning with his very first shot, when he found a bunker rather than the fairway.
McIlroy went on to make a double, wiping out his overnight lead, but he reveals that, rather than leave him deflated, it galvanised him by putting him “in a different frame of mind of trying to protect a lead to, ‘I need to go out and get this,’ and almost feel like I was chasing.”
The result of that mindset shift wasn’t seen immediately, with DeChambeau holding the solo lead after McIlroy could only par the second.
However, as viewers see the final round unfold in the video, accompanied by McIlroy’s commentary, they are reminded that he was far from finished.
Indeed, after the 11th, McIlroy appeared to have one hand on the trophy, holding a four-shot lead. Still, the drama wasn’t done, though, including shockingly finding the water on the par-5 13th, resulting in a double bogey - his fourth of the week.
On the moment he made the error, McIlroy says: “I went from being in control of the golf tournament to all of a sudden blowing the thing wide open.”
Two holes later, we saw the other side of McIlroy, when he brilliantly hooked a 7-iron around some trees on the left side of the fairway to set up an eagle chance, a moment he summarises by saying: “That shot will go down as one of the greatest shots of my career.”
He missed the eagle chance, but took the birdie to lead by one.
Coming down the 18th, McIlroy led Justin Rose, who was back in the clubhouse, by one, thanks to another superb approach on the 17th that led to a birdie, with the star saying: “To know that you go to the 18th tee knowing you need a par to win The Masters, that’s a pretty cool feeling.”
As we know, it still wasn’t enough to get McIlroy his long-awaited Green Jacket. After finding a greenside bogey with his second, he needed an up-and-down to win, leaving a six-foot putt for the all-important par.
At that stage, viewers are given a glimpse into the attention to detail McIlroy puts into his preparation, as he explains: “I’ve seen a lot of players over the years hit that putt. The players that miss that putt miss it high."
McIlroy adds: “I maybe under-read it or I didn’t give it enough break thinking of that,” and it stayed out.
That left him in the playoff with Rose, where McIlroy’s second onto the green left him “pleasantly surprised by how close my ball was.” Rose missed, McIlroy didn’t, and The Masters title was his.
“I dropped to my knees and I screamed from the top of my lungs twice into that green," explains McIlroy.
Not surprisingly, the memory of that moment stirs up McIlroy's emotions in the video, as he goes on to wrap up a brilliant summary of one of the most remarkable rounds of golf ever witnessed.
