Grand master

Rory won it, lost it, won it, lost it and finally actually won it at Augusta. Bill Elliott reflects on the sheer drama of his history-making final round

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Where to start this piece on The Masters of 2025? There’s only one place. The last green, the action over, 73 holes completed, a play-off ended after just one extra hole and the Wee Man collapsed on the grass, chest heaving as he sobbed with relief, excitement and, quite probably, physical and mental exhaustion.

Finally, 39 Majors after his fourth big win at the 2014 US PGA Championship, Rory Mcllroy had won his fifth. It came with a bonus, the Career Grand Slam. And it got rid of the two monkeys he has carried, one on each shoulder. Would he ever add a fifth Major? Yes. Could he become the sixth golfer to win all four? Yes. Questions that were answered emphatically and nervously.

You know this, we all know this, but it’s worth repeating because many of us weren’t sure he could do it. And it turns out that neither was he over the last few years. Not really, whatever he has said in the past.

The point is that, despite those negative murmurings that kept surfacing from deep in his psyche, and despite the poor choices that diluted his often terrific golf, he kept going, kept trying and kept us on the edge of our seats before, like him, we collapsed in a heap.

At which point I'd like to turn to Justin Rose and Bryson DeChambeau. Rose, composed, careful and strategically astute, has now lost in two Masters play-offs. He’s in good company, because Ben Hogan is the only other man to suffer this fate, although obviously the American did win The Masters to join that elite group of ‘Slammers’.