Rory vs. Rosey

In an era of fast news cycles, sports has latched on as a “what have you done lately” vehicle. With NBA and NHL playoffs here, the NFL draft around the corner, and, yes, the MLB has started its six month slog—it’s easy to forget that just a few days ago, a new chapter was etched into the global sports pantheon.

Rory McIlroy, the face of the PGA Tour for the post-Tiger era, has just slayed his dragon. This wasn’t about ousting the World #1 Golfer or the YouTubing LIV sensation who ousted him at Pinehurst. This was about ousting the demons within. 

Rory hadn’t won a major title in 11 years, let alone the Masters ever. With this win, he not only ended a drought but, oh yeah, became just the sixth golfer ever to win the Grand Slam. 

To the victor goes the spoils and more on Rory in a moment, but first I want to address Justin Rose. 

Amidst the relief and celebration I share with Rory, I feel for Justin Rose.

After Rory won his Masters, outpouring unadulterated, raw tears, body shaking with jubilation, Rose walked over, shook Rory’s hand, and gently cupped the back of his adversary’s head in congratulation. That subtle embrace, one that looked like an father reluctantly proud of his son for beating him at his own game, was a consolation I wanted to provide Rose. 

Rosey has had a brilliant two-decade career: a U.S. Open title, an Olympic gold medal, and a world’s No. 1 ranking. But the Green Jacket still eludes him. For the second time, he lost in a Masters playoff. And for the third time, he’s Augusta’s bridesmaid.

His Sunday charge—10 birdies, including looooooong putts on 11 and 18—was the stuff of legend. A win would have cemented his legacy, escalating his Hall of Fame candidacy. It’s a shame that if fluke winners such as Danny Willett and Larry Mize are sealed in Augusta National’s book of life, Rose certainly should be by now.

But golf is cruel in its finality. Rose has come close in every major. He does have one major victory - the 2013 US Open at Merion - but has finished second at The Open (twice) and third at the PGA. We remember the majors you win—not the ones you almost did.

Of all sports, golf is the most deserving for the slogan “It is what it is.”

There’s an absoluteness to what is and what should never be. The shots which land in the trees and in the water, the ones that land adjacent to the hole. The perfect putts that hit a pebble and veer offline with inches to go, or the lucky putts that used their last revolution and a 13 stimp to find the bottom of the cup. 

When recapping Rose’s 6-under 66 round, it’s difficult for shoulda-coulda-wouldas. 

We can’t say Rose “should’ve” made the short par putt on 17, in the same way as he “should’ve” missed the long putt on 18. By all intents and purposes, his birdie make on 11 constitutes what most of us would see as a lag putt, yet he drained it. 

How can he regret anything, when he needed 10 birdies to equalize a leader he started 7 shots back. On Sunday at Augusta no less. It is what it is. 

No matter if Rose won in his 20th attempt at the Green Jacket - the longest wait to ever win one - his story would’ve been secondary. No headlines of Rose’s miraculous play would have usurped that of Rory’s conjunctive crumble. The compounding exposure of another major slipping away, greased up by mental lapses and physical yips. Rory’s inability to win another major, to conquer Augusta, to leap into a current stratosphere of his own. 

Rose’s victory wouldn’t have been due from his own merit, poise, and dare I say destiny; It would have been due to Rory’s collapse. 

So now let’s shift to Rory. 

Because yes, despite the pressurized stage and an even more pressurized CBS graphic TO WIN THE GRAND SLAM, Rory did win on the 73rd hole. 

When he tapped in his “within-the-leather” putt to clinch victory, Rory’s reputation skyrocketed faster than any athlete in recent memory. (Some examples I thought of was LeBron in 2016 and Ovechkin in 2019, when they led their teams to titles).

For years, the knock on Rory was his inability to follow up his prodigious career start. Those years added up into a decade and while he struggled to win other majors, people began to rationalize about just winning one…the Masters. Fans, media, and to some extent Rory himself became hyper-focused on Augusta. Sure, a PGA Championship is nice, but that would merely absolve him of a drought and not the larger narrative. The Masters was his final piece of the Grand Slam, an achievement that had become a mental Everest, but also an Everest to those craving golf immortality.

Despite nearly 30 PGA Tour wins, and two Players Championships, Rory’s “regular season” achievements weren’t enough. Being the face of the PGA in a post-Tiger world and during their battle with LIV weren’t enough. He was still judged for what he hadn't done.

We don’t discuss Phil Mickelson in the same light as Rory, perhaps because he’s two decades older and sold his soul to LIV, but he too is one major away from the Grand Slam. Do we give his near misses - his bevy of 2nd place US Open finishes - the same heat as Rory? No, because if you own three Green Jackets you get a forcefield around your reputation. For some reason, legacy is about what you do at Augusta (Just ask Trevor Immelman’s broadcasting career). 

Both Rose and Phil have been a few strokes from history. Both are reminders of how harsh the margins are in golf. But Rory’s burden was unique: win one tournament— the elusive one—and you complete the crown. The weight of that clarity can be crushing as in Tom Petty’s lyric “God it’s so painful when something that’s so close is still so far out of reach.”

Rory became all of us—someone chasing something bigger than themselves. The outpouring of joy from fans wasn’t just about a golfer winning. It was about seeing someone finally break through. People shared their feelings of relief for Rory, exalting they’ve never felt so happy for someone they’ve never met. As sports fans, have we not yet learned that the point isn’t about meeting or not meeting someone? We root for people that pose as mirrors; people full of talent, haunted by self-doubt, trying to push past the invisible hurdle.

Sports fans rarely acknowledge the truth that we view athletes as extensions of ourselves. Their struggles and triumphs are metaphors for our own. Rory didn’t just win a tournament—he overcame something. By overcoming that something, he overcame the doubt that came with repeatedly failing. It’s a spiral that many of us face in our day-to-day lives. Whether we realize it consciously, to root for a guy who doesn’t know you exist, is to root for the attributes you live with everyday.  

Beyond the projection of the fan-athlete relationship, Rory is now one of the best golfers ever. 

He may have already felt that intrinsically, but he shut up millions of golf fans and millions more sports fans carrying their rolodex of cliche narratives. He can’t win the big one.

The narrative was destroyed at Augusta—a surreal, phone-free netherworld where people slow down and actually look up. No doomscrolling Instagram. No texting group chats. No anticipation of missing out on big news. The world is moving on without you, but at the same time you’re moving on without it. Just you and the golf course, shared with 100,000 other patrons. 

When people retrieved their cellphones from their cars (or security), they logged back onto see what they had witnessed first hand. Rory McIlroy had won the Masters. 

The praise is loud and the critics are quiet. Those who said he couldn’t do it, now say he can’t be stopped. After ten years of narratives clouding Rory’s brilliance, pundits are now talking about how many more majors he’ll win. Not three, not four, not five. 

This is our new normal. You plan a wedding for a year, think about the details every hour you get the chance, and then one moment you’ve cut the cake. You wait the first few years of adult life to get a dog and now that you have him, the anticipation has become habituated. Reality has set in. 

The moment finally arrives… and then it's over.

The rhetoric, discourse, consternation about Rory’s ability to live up to his potential has been bottled up and washed into the sea. 

What can we possibly say now to deny Rory McIlroy his place among golf’s greatest?

Nothing.