AUGUSTA, Ga. – Rory McIlroy fell to his knees and began to cry. He let out a primal scream as 14 years of pent-up frustration poured out.

“My battle today was with myself,” McIlroy said. “It was a struggle but I got it over the line.”

McIlroy, 35, sank a 4-foot birdie putt at Augusta National Golf Club on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff with Justin Rose to win the 89^th Masters on Sunday. He became the sixth player in men’s professional golf to complete the career Grand Slam, the first to do so since Tiger Woods in 2000, and ended his 11-year victory drought in the majors. In doing so, he cemented himself as the greatest player of the post-Tiger generation.

“I have dreamt about that moment for as long as I can remember,” McIlroy said. 

It was a rollercoaster day of emotions as a nervous McIlroy squandered his two-stroke overnight lead with a double bogey on the first hole and lost the lead by the time he reached the third tee. McIlroy bounced back with birdies at the third and fourth hole and after a birdie at the ninth held a four-stroke lead as he made the turn. But as his fellow pro and good friend Shane Lowry pointed out later, “He doesn’t make things easy, does he?” 

No, he did not. But that was a reflection of how desperately McIlroy wanted to win the elusive last leg of the career Grand Slam.

Rory McIlroy knows signing center of Masters flag is 'reserved for the winners'

Dustin Raymond knows as well as anybody. He has carried a black Sharpie to every Masters since 1991 to collect autographs on yellow souvenir flags with the Masters logo in the center. For a collector, nothing tops a pro's signature inside the green outline of the United States map with the red flagstick and hole location in Augusta, Georgia.

“It’s like the sweet spot on a baseball,” Raymond said.

To improve his odds of landing this prime real estate, Raymond folds the flag until only the Masters logo is showing and hands it to pros as if asking them to sign on the dotted line. It usually does the trick but not with McIlroy, who has unfolded Raymond’s flag and scribbled his signature in one of its corners. When asked whether that was conscious decision, McIlroy nodded his head to confirm that this wasn’t by accident.

“The center is reserved for the winners, isn’t it?” he said.

McIlroy’s superstition may rival that of a hockey player refusing to touch the Stanley Cup until his team has won it, and it illustrated just how badly he coveted the one major title that separated him from joining one of the most exclusive clubs in golf.

Gene Sarazen was the first to do so when he captured the 1935 Masters at age 33. Tiger Woods was the youngest to complete the grand slam when he won the 2000 Open Championship at the age of 24, Ben Hogan the oldest at 40 at the 1953 Open Championship. Nicklaus, 26, completed his slam at the 1966 British Open, and Gary Player, who was 29 when he edged Nicklaus by a year at the 1965 U.S. Open, along with two-time Masters champion Tom Watson, who never converted the final leg of the Grand Slam, failing to win the PGA Championship, all predicted McIroy would accomplish the rare feat this year in his 11th attempt.

“There’s never been a course that’s suited for a player like Augusta for Rory,” Player said. “It’s made for him.”

As soon as McIlroy captured the third leg at the 2014 British Open Championship in July, he articulated his new ambition.

"To be going to Augusta next year as a 25-year-old and have the chance to win the career grand slam – even I didn't think it was possible," McIlroy said at his winner’s press conference more than a decade ago.

Augusta National proved to be McIlroy's biggest challenge

Somehow the Masters, the major he nearly won first in 2011, became the last he needed to have his faced chiseled into the class picture of golf’s most exclusive fraternity. For three days in 2011, the then-21-year-old Northern Irishmen imposed his will on Augusta National, building a four-stroke lead. The press swooned. The final round was supposed to be a coronation ceremony.

Everything was unfolding just as he had dreamed. He had pasted Tiger’s fourth-round Augusta scorecard from his 12-stroke victory in 1997 onto his bedroom wall and committed to memory Woods’s various accomplishments. As a nine-year-old, McIlroy charmed a television audience by chipping balls into the family washing machine and declaring to the world his goal to win majors.

Only McIlroy fouled up the story. He shot a back-nine 43 and staggered home in 80, tying the worst final-round score by a 54-hole leader in tournament history. The headline in The Irish Independent blared “A Masters Meltdown.”

“At the time,” he said, “it felt like the only chance I would have of winning Augusta and I blew it.”

CBS golf analyst Peter Kostis was assigned the unenviable task of approaching McIlroy for a post-round interview. “He said, ‘Right about now I feel like I need a hug.’ I was whispering in his ear so nobody else could hear the conversation," Kostis recalled. "I said, ‘All right. I’ll give you a hug.’”

After the two men embraced, words poured from McIlroy’s mouth with such candor that it won him supporters around the globe.

“The important part of the story is not the hug,” Kostis explained to Golfweek. “The important part is that he manned up and did the interview. That to me is the moment. He fulfilled his obligations at a time when he was really devastated.”

Everyone marveled at McIlroy’s textbook swing, his dazzling length and his finesse around the green. But could he control his nerves at a major?

Out of failure rose triumph. Eight weeks later, McIlroy rebounded with one of the most eye-popping performances. He displayed that rare ability to take a lead and extend it. He won by eight strokes at the 2011 U.S. Open and by the same margin at the 2012 PGA Championship. But would he be impervious to pressure in a back-nine battle? McIlroy proved his mettle, withstanding charges at the 2014 British Open Championship and rallying at the PGA Championship at Valhalla. Nothing made him flinch. He wasn’t yet 25, owned four majors and ended 2014 head and shoulders above the rest, finishing no worse than second in his last seven starts.

And yet for the next decade, the Masters represented unrequited love. On Tuesday he recalled spring evenings where he would sit with his father, Gerry, and watch the Masters. 

“I think all that sort of comes back to me, as well. Remembering why I fell in love with the game,” he said. And of the course itself he added, “I think it's obviously just a beautiful place. I don't think there's a more beautiful golf course on earth. It's like you're playing golf in the prettiest park in the world basically.”

Despite his everlasting affection for the place, every April in Augusta ended in another disappointment. 

“I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” McIlroy admitted on Sunday. And what was it like to hear the legends of the game say it was a matter of when not if he'd join them as a Masters champion? “That's a hard load to carry, it really is," McIlroy said. "It's very flattering that they all come up here and they believe in me and they believe in my abilities to be able to win this tournament and, you know, achieve the Grand Slam and all that. But it doesn't help, you know." 

McIlroy remained stuck on four majors as his fellow competitors such as Brooks Koepka, who had none in 2014, surpassed him with five. In recent years, McIlroy endured one heartbreak after another. He co-led the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews but made just two birdies as a cold putter let him down and Cam Smith raced by him with a 64. At the 2023 U.S. Open, he trailed by a shot after three rounds but posted another 70 to finish second to Wyndham Clark. 

“When I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet,” McIlroy said that Sunday in Los Angeles. “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”

One year later at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, he took perhaps the toughest gut punch of all. He let a two-stroke lead with five holes to go slip away as he missed two short putts including at the last and handed the trophy to Bryson DeChambeau. But McIlroy is nothing but resilient and he kept dusting himself off and coming back for another go at it – heartache be damned!

This season, he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Players Championship, the first time he has won twice before the Masters and dubbed himself a more complete player. He raced to a fast start and was 4 under in the opening round when he made two late double bogeys at Nos. 15 and 17 and signed for a disappointing even-par 72. But McIlroy wiped away any concern that this might be another lost year with back-to-back rounds of 66, including opening the third round with a Masters record six consecutive threes on his card. 

On Sunday morning, McIlroy arrived at his locker and inside he found a note from 2009 Masters champion Angel Cabrera wishing him luck. It wasn’t lost on McIlroy that Cabrera was the player he played with on the final day in 2011 when it had all gone haywire. “It was a nice touch," McIlroy said, "and a little bit ironic at the same time.” 

McIlroy gave new meaning to the old cliché that the Masters doesn’t start until the back nine on Sunday. He reached 14 under with a birdie at No. 10. His heavyweight rematch with DeChambeau faded as golf’s strongman, who had posted three rounds in the 60s to make the final pairing, faded to a 75. But McIlroy's mettle would be put to the test. Up ahead, Rose and Ludvig Aberg were charging. Rose made 10 birdies on the day, including eight in his final 12 holes. McIlroy made the first of several costly mistakes at No. 11, leading to a bogey and including a sand wedge from 82 yards at the par-5 13^th that rolled back into Rae’s Creek. It resulted in his fourth double bogey of the week, something no Masters champion had ever done before. 

“I wanted to cry for him,” DeChambeau said. “I mean, as a professional, you just know to hit it in the middle of the green, and I can't believe he went for it, or must have just flared it. But I've hit bad shots in my career, too, and it happens. When you're trying to win a major championship, especially out here, Sunday of Augusta, the Masters, you have to just do it and get the job done and do it right. There were times where it looked like he had full control and at times where it's like, what's going on. Kind of looked like one of my rounds, actually.”

When Rose made birdie at 16, McIlroy’s big lead was gone and he trailed by a stroke after he followed with a bogey at 14. Aberg had a share of the lead for a hot moment at 10 under and still was one shot off the lead on 17 but finished bogey, triple bogey to close with 72 and finished seventh.

It was down to McIlroy and Rose for the Green Jacket. Powered by enough support from the patrons to run the entire city grid, McIlroy hit one of the defining shots of the tournament at 15, drawing a 7-iron around the pine trees to 6 feet only to miss the eagle putt. But he tapped in for birdie and regained the lead at 11 under. Rose lost a shot with a bogey at 17 but answered with a clutch birdie at 18 to 6-under 66 and post 11-under 277.

“To make the putt on 18, the one you dream about as a kid, to obviously give myself an opportunity and a chance was an unbelievable feeling,” he said.

It looked as if McIlroy delivered what would go down as the shot that clinched his elusive Masters at 17, drilling an 8-iron to 2 feet for the go-ahead birdie. But he made the softest of bogeys from 127 yards and the middle of the fairway at 18, his 6-foot putt for the win sliding by on the left.  

It could have been a crushing blow, but after McIlroy signed for 73, his caddie and childhood friend, Harry Diamond, sidled up to him as they walked to a cart to take them back to the 18th tee for the sudden-death playoff. "Well, pal, we would have taken this on Monday morning," Diamond said. 

"Yeah, absolutely we would have," McIlroy said. 

That was the reset McIlroy needed and he crushed another perfect drive. This time, McIlroy was two yards closer and hit a three-quarter gap wedge that caught the slope and crawled to a stop 2 feet from the hole.

Over the course of the final two hours, McIlroy had one arm in the Green Jacket but kept doing his best to let it slip from his grasp. Rose, who had lost a sudden-death playoff to Sergio Garcia in 2017, missed his 19-foot birdie putt and became the first two-time playoff loser at the Masters. McIlroy converted the winner and his dream had come true as Scottie Scheffler would drape a 38 Regular over his shoulders. He placed his hands atop his head in disbelief.

“It was all relief,” he said. “There wasn't much joy in that reaction. It was all relief. The joy came pretty soon after that.”

Then came the hugs. First was Diamond, then Rose, which ended with a handshake. The two had been invited to a dinner by members of the club on Tuesday night and were the only two players at the table. 

“It's funny how these things work,” McIlroy said.

Rose recognized the significance of the moment, telling McIlroy, “Listen, I was glad I was here on this green to witness you win the career Grand Slam. That's such a cool, momentous moment in the game of golf.”

McIlroy, hugged his wife, Erica, and his daughter, Poppy, and before long Lowry lifted him off his feet, his own sadness over shooting 81 temporarily forgotten. As McIlroy continued to embrace the likes of Tommy Fleetwood and other longtime supporters, he finally backed away and said, “I’ve gotta go get a Green Jacket!”

“To watch someone win the Grand Slam, it’s incredible,” Lowry said. “This means everything to him, it’s all he thinks about, it’s all he talks about. He always said to me he’d retire a happy man if he won the Green Jacket. I told Erica he can retire now.”

But during the Green Jacket ceremony, McIlroy already was looking ahead to returning to his favorite golf course, where he gets to play now for as long as he likes. “I can’t wait to be back here and put a jacket on myself,” he joked.

And it wasn't his last funny line. McIlroy opened his winner’s press conference by saying he had a question of his own: “What are we all going to talk about next year?"

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Rory McIlroy emotional after completing career grand slam at Masters

Golf News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos