How Rory McIlroy's Grand Slam Dream Came True

If Rory McIlroy was going to win The Masters and achieve the career grand slam he was never going to do it the easy way. 

And that is exactly the way things turned out at Augusta National, with the Northern Irishman riding a rollercoaster of emotion for four sensational days as he finally laid his demons to rest.

Here, we look back at four incredible days, at how he seemed to win and lose this tournament umpteen times before finally coming good. 

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He carried a huge amount of scar tissue into the week and it often looked like it would be a case of another Masters and another bitter disappointment.

The First Round

After 14 holes of the opening round, the world number two was four under par. Then came the par-five 15th hole. He struck a fine approach that was a touch too aggressive and rolled off the back of the green, leaving him with a treacherous downhill chip.

Akshay Bhatia, one of his playing partners, had dumped his approach into the water in front of the green and had to take a drop. He then took about 10 practice swings, finally hit his shot and his ball finished in McIlroy’s line so the Northern Irishman had to wait for Bhatia to talk the long walk to the putting surface to mark his ball before McIlroy could finally play. 

He then had to wait for players on the nearby 16th tee to play. By the time he finally got around to hitting his shot he had waiting to play for almost four minutes.

And, of course, he then got it all wrong, hit it too hard and the ball vanished into the water. What had looked like a probable birdie had turned into a double-bogey seven.

There is a point to be made here. There has been much talk about stamping out slow play. So will somebody please tell me why Bhatia was not penalised for all his pontificating?

Back to McIlroy. He parred the 16th and then, having driven the ball quite beautifully all day, he opted to hit a three wood at the 17th and ended up in the rough on the right. It meant he had little or no control over his second shot, which duly cleared the green, leaving him with yet another near-impossible shot. He could do no better than to run the ball about 15 feet beyond the hole.

Desperately trying to escape with nothing worse than a bogey, his first putt was hit too hard and he missed the return. Another double bogey.

He then carved his drive at the 18th into the trees and actually did incredibly well to escape with a par. 

A round that had looked like being a 67 or a 68 turned into a 72. He chose not to speak to the media afterwards. In truth, I find it hard to criticise him for that because you just know that every question he would have been asked would have centred around his finish, completely ignoring everything that had gone before. He would have been asked if the pressure was too much, if he was trying too hard. And somebody would no doubt have questioned his temperament.

For the best part of 15 holes, McIlroy had played beautifully. There was a spring in his step and a smile on his face. By the time he walked off the final green he looked like a beaten man.

The Second Round

So what happened in the second round? It was the polar opposite of his opening effort.

For much of the front nine there was a sense that he was just hanging on. He managed to birdie the par-five second and reached the turn at one under par for the tournament, looking entirely unconvincing.

But then came the second nine. 

For all it was his undoing on day one, he might have felt that it owed him something. A magnificent approach at the 10th left him with a tap-in for birdie and another followed at the 11th. 

He had a huge slice of luck at the par-three 12th. His tee shot cleared the green and landed in the rubbish behind the green but, incredibly, it spun back and he was able to save par.

At the par-five 13th he hit his drive right into the pine straw. He had a gap and chose to go for the green and produced the shot of the day, his ball finishing about eight feet from the hole. And he duly holed it for eagle.  All of a sudden he was five under par. A routine par followed at the 14th. He must have had some nerves playing the 15th but he birdied that too to move to six under and then finished with three pars for a round of 66. All of a sudden, McIlroy was back in the picture, snapping at the heels of Justin Rose.

The dream was alive again.

The Third Round

And on we went to Saturday. Moving day.

McIlroy began two shots behind Rose and a shot adrift of Bryson DeChambeau, his nemesis at last year’s US Open. Also in the mix were world number one Scottie Scheffler, Tyrrell Hatton, Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland, Jason Day, Corey Conners and Rasmus Hojgaard. It was a leaderboard stacked with world-class talent. And they all knew that the course was going to be playing harder than it had over the first two days.

For McIlroy, this was the acid test. Against all the odds, he had played himself back into the mix.

He needed a fast start in round three. He got it. The fastest start ever. He made history.

He birdied the first, chipped in for an eagle at the second and birdied the third. Four under for the round after three holes. He parred the fourth, birdied the fifth and parred the sixth to become the first golfer ever to start a round at Augusta with six threes.

It was the stuff of dreams and the next challenge was to somehow find a way to keep his adrenalin under control. Shots went at the eighth and 10th. But he steadied the ship with pars at the 11th and 12th.

And then he birdied the par-five 13th. A par followed at the 14th and he got his revenge on the 15th with a brilliant six iron approach before holing the putt for an eagle. There were fabulous shots to the 17th and 18th greens but he was unable to add to his tally. Another 66 and a total of 12 under par.

What of the rest?

Hatton had a day to forget. And it all proved too much for Rose, whose 75 was 10 shots worse than his opening effort. He had held himself together pretty well but three-putted from nowhere on the 16th before dropping another shot at the last. Scheffler flattered to deceive but could do no better than a 72, the same score achieved by Lowry. 

Ludvig Aberg’s 69 moved him to six under, probably too far adrift. He was joined on the same total by Patrick Reed. Conners improved to eight under after a fine 70.

As DeChambeau stood on the 16th tee he trailed McIlroy by four shots. But his tee shot at the par three finished stone dead for a birdie and he then holed a monster at the last to reduce the deficit to two. And so, the pair would go toe to toe once again with another major on the line.

The Final Round

So who would blink first in the final round?

It started horribly for McIlroy. He found the sand with his opening drive and ended up with a double bogey. He also hit his drive at the par-five second into the sand. DeChambeau would birdie the hole, while McIlroy could only manage a par. In the space of two holes he trailed by a shot.

But he had shown incredible resilience all week and did so once again. It quickly became clear that DeChambeau was struggling with both his iron play and his putting and he would fade from the scene. The challenge would come from elsewhere, most notably Rose and Aberg.

Rose produced an incredible 10 birdies in a round of 66 as he reeled in the Northern Irishman. And while all of this was going on McIlroy was being, well…McIlroy. He birdied the third and, after a stunning shot at the par-three fourth, found another at the par-three fourth to hit the front again. He hit a number of wayward drives on the front nine but at the ninth produced another glorious approach to set up a third birdie of the day. And when he followed it with another at the 10th it looked like he was in cruise control.

But then he nearly hit his second at the 11th into the water and dropped a shot. A safe par followed at the 12th. And then came a horror show at the par-five 13th. Unable to go for the green with his second, he laid up and then, inexplicably, dumped his third into Rae’s Creek and walked off with a ruinous seven. And he followed it with another bogey at the 14th. In the blink of an eye he had dropped four shots.

He somehow managed to gather himself to produce arguably the shot of the tournament at the par-five 15th. Blocked out by the trees for his second shot he hit a huge hook that soared into the sky, hit the front of the green and finished no more than eight feet from the hole. He missed the putt but walked off with a birdie that took him back into a one-shot lead ahead of Rose and Aberg.

He narrowly missed adding another birdie at the 16th but hit a stunning second at the treacherous 17th to set up another birdie. Up ahead, Rose had holed a 30-footer for a birdie to end on 11 under. Aberg had a horror finish, culminating in a seven at the final hole. And when McIlroy converted it meant a par at the 18th would give him the Green Jacket.

He struck a magnificent drive on the final hole but with only a wedge in his hands flared his second way right into a greenside bunker. From there he splashed out to five feet. This was the moment he had dreamt of. This was surely his moment. A five-footer to win The Masters. But he missed.

How he managed to regroup for the playoff only McIlroy will ever know. But he did. Another stellar drive found the middle of the 18th fairway. Rose had hit his second to about 20 feet. McIlroy thumped a gap wedge that found the slope and rolled towards the hole. Closer and closer. Three feet away.

When Rose missed, McIlroy stepped up - and this time made no mistake.