Rory McIlroy wins the 2025 Masters in a dramatic playoff, completes the career Grand Slam

AUGUSTA, Ga. – In a head-spinning, stomach-churning, history-making round of golf, Rory McIlroy outran demons, overcame blunders and etched his name among the game’s giants Sunday night. He finally won the Masters and slipped on the green jacket that he had chased for so long, the vibrant wool covering years of heartbreak and scar tissue.

It was a thrill ride from start to finish, ending in a sudden-death playoff in which McIlroy bested Justin Rose and finally captured the career Grand Slam, winning all four of the major championships. When it was finally over, McIlroy tossed his putter in the air and collapsed on the 18th green. When he rose, he shouted to the heavens, unleashing years of torment.

“It was all relief,” he said later. “There wasn’t much joy in that reaction. It was all relief.”

Because he’s Rory McIlroy, nothing about the day – the biggest victory in a career that has been filled with them – was easy. He fumbled away a four-shot lead and had to claw his way back to the top of the leader board late. He missed a 5-foot putt on the tournament’s 72nd hole that would have sealed the win, the inexplicable bogey dropping him into a tie with Rose and forcing the playoff.

Fans who were biting their nails on the back nine had reached their knuckles by the time the golfers returned to the 18th tee box. In the playoff, both golfers hit pinpoint approach shots to the green – Rose to 15 feet, McIlroy to 3.

Rose missed his putt, McIlroy didn’t, and the golf world exhaled – no one as strongly as the 35-year old Northern Irishman.

“There were points in my career where I didn’t know if I would have this nice garment over my shoulders,” he said Sunday night while draped in green. “I didn’t make it easy today. … I was nervous. It was one of the toughest days I’ve ever had on the golf course.”

McIlroy had waited more than a decade to complete the career grand slam, and all it took was four days of sensational shot-making, booming drives and a handful of clutch putts. His final-round 73 put him at 11 under par for the tournament, capped by the birdie on the playoff hole.

“This was my 17th time here, and I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” an emotional McIlroy said in Butler Cabin.

Rose, who led after the first and second rounds, posted a 66 on Sunday. He had 10 birdies, none bigger than his 20-footer on No. 18. He finished as the runner-up at the Masters for a third time; this was the second time he lost in a playoff.

The day was filled with shots on which it seemed certain that McIlroy had won – and lost – the tournament. Tied with Rose, he blasted his second shot on the 17th hole toward the menacing green, a highlight-reel bomb that came to a rest just 3 feet from the pin. McIlroy’s birdie putt gave him sole possession of the lead.

The 18th hole turned into another nail-biter. After a masterful bunker shot, McIlroy missed his short putt, stirring familiar questions throughout the gallery. Was he going to let this slip away? Fortunately for him, he had another chance to make one in the playoff.

“My battle today was with myself,” McIlroy said. “It wasn’t with anyone else.”

McIlroy became just the sixth man to complete the career Grand Slam, joining golf royalty Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. The victory also snapped his excruciatingly long major championship drought. Until Sunday, he had come up short in his previous 38 majors, enduring so many heartbreaking moments that emboldened skeptics and seeded self-doubt.

Sunday was dangerously close to joining that long list. The final round was packed with drama – and self-inflicted agony. McIlroy overcame two double bogeys in the final round (and four in the tournament) and missed putts that could have put the tournament away.

Still, he had to fend off late pushes by Rose; Patrick Reed, whose eagle on No. 17 shot him up the leader board before he finished third at 9 under; and Ludvig Aberg, whose triple bogey on No. 18 sent him tumbling to seventh at 6 under.

Rose had been so steady since his first shot of this tournament. Though he started Sunday seven strokes behind McIlroy, he kept chipping away. The 44-year-old Englishman posted five birdies over a six-hole stretch on the back nine, making sure McIlroy would have to put in some work.

“Something happened, for sure, around the middle of the round,” Rose said. “I just kind of went into the place that you dream about going to.”

Rose’s birdie on No. 15 dropped him to 10 under, right around the time McIlroy splashed an errant approach shot into the water on No. 13. McIlroy took another double bogey, and moments later, on the 16th green, Rose rolled in his ninth birdie of the day – a three-shot swing that left McIlroy and Rose in a temporary tie for first.

The galleries that snaked around majestic Augusta National were stunned. How did this happen? How did it all unravel?

The fireworks started early Sunday, and McIlroy knew from the opening hole that there would be no coasting to a green jacket. He started the day with a two-shot lead but three-putted for a double bogey on the first hole and watched Bryson DeChambeau birdie the second.

The nightmare start meant he suddenly trailed at the Masters by a shot. Golf’s heavyweights – the biggest stars of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf – started exchanging blows. With his back against the ropes, McIlroy counterpunched, posting birdies on Nos. 3 and 4, both holes that DeChambeau bogeyed.

The final round was supposed to be a duel between two of the game’s most skilled players – a rematch of sorts after last year’s U.S. Open, where DeChambeau beat McIlroy by a stroke. But McIlroy grabbed the spotlight Sunday. When the pair made the turn, he was sitting at 13 under and had a four-shot advantage over DeChambeau. (The LIV star posted a final-round 75, fading to a tie for fifth at 7 under with Sungjae Im.)

McIlroy rolled in clutch birdie putts on Nos. 9 and 10, but, of course, he has been in these situations before and knows how tenuous a Sunday lead can be. He lost his poise on the back nine, posting a bogey at No. 11, followed by the disastrous double bogey on No. 13 and then another bogey on No. 14. Suddenly, there was a logjam at the top – a three-way tie among Rose, McIlroy and Aberg.

On the 15th hole, the monstrous 550-yard par-5, McIlroy blasted his second shot to 6 feet. His birdie gave him the solo lead until Rose rolled in his dramatic birdie putt on No. 18. McIlroy’s miss there sent the two back to the 18th tee, and McIlroy had precious little time to chat with his caddie, Harry Diamond, and regroup.

“That was an easy reset,” McIlroy said. “He basically said to me, ‘Look, you would have given your right arm to be in a playoff at the start of the week.’ So that sort of reframed it a little bit for me.”

His fifth major championship is his biggest yet. He had spent years dreaming about the green jacket, a 38 regular that fits him well. He wore it to a news conference after the tournament, turning the tables on reporters who covered the ups and the many downs of his drawn-out Grand Slam quest.

“I’d like to start this news conference with a question myself,” McIlroy said. “What are we all going to talk about next year?”