Did You Expect Anything Different?

After he at long last secured the green jacket he had been chasing for 14 years, Rory McIlroy called it “ironic” that he found an encouraging note from Angel Cabrera in his locker at Augusta National hours before he teed off for the final round. Cabrera played with McIlroy on Sunday in 2011, when the 21-year-old shot 80 and threw away his chance to win the Masters, adding the first layer of weight to McIlroy’s shoulders. When he used the word “ironic,” he most likely meant that Cabrera had been there to witness the debacle firsthand. But Cabrera had won on the Champions Tour the week before this Masters, 20 months after being released from prison. You had to wonder if McIlroy meant something more in his description of the note.

Only 18 holes from completing his long-anticipated career grand slam, McIlroy said he was nervous when he arrived at the 1st tee on Sunday with a two-shot lead. After an opening double bogey, he triggered the choking fears of most competitive golfers. Then he hit his tee shot into the fairway bunker at the 2nd hole and escaped with par. Like that, his lead was gone. He was now the chaser. Golf demons don’t die easily. 

The final round was expected to be a heavyweight title bout between two titans for golf’s greatest title, paired together for the first time in a major. The showdown wasn’t without layers: LIV vs the PGA Tour, the U.S. vs Europe, a U.S. Open rematch between Rory and Bryson. 

“Golf gives you an insight into human nature, your own as well as your opponent’s,” Grantland Rice wrote. DeChambeau seemed to embrace a head-to-head showdown after holing a 48-footer on the final hole on Saturday evening to pull within two of McIlroy. McIlroy downplayed the pairing, saying he would stay in his own little world on Sunday. Had DeChambeau burst McIlroy’s bubble just two holes into the final round?

McIlroy said the opening double bogey allowed him to settle into the round. The tee shot at the 3rd was an indication that he was now focused on golf and not worrying about the lead, history, or anything else. He made back-to-back birdies while it became evident DeChambeau’s short game would no longer bail out his ball striking. McIlroy regained control as a result of the four-shot swing over those two holes, having overcome what might have been the most frightening 30 minutes of his golf life to that point. DeChambeau later said that McIlroy gave him the silent treatment all day, uninterested in striking up a conversation. (Given what was on the line, can you blame him?) The man with almost 2 million YouTube subscribers wasn’t used to being ignored, and it clearly irked him. McIlory’s bubble hadn’t burst; it was a force field.  

DeChambeau was supposed to be the perfect foil to McIlroy. “The Rumble in the Jungle,” the legendary 1974 fight in Zaire between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali in which Ali regained his heavyweight title after returning from boxing exile, was slated for 15 rounds. It only went eight. When DeChambeau hooked a short iron into the water on 11, McIlroy was six clear of DeChambeau and the bout seemed over. It appeared that McIlroy might win running away. But there was the 2011 Masters where McIlroy shot 43 on the closing nine, last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst when he had one hand on the trophy, and so much heartache and disappointment at the majors in between. These demons cannot be outrun, they must be slain. 

Joseph Conrad describes the Congo River, formerly the Zaire River, in Heart of Darkness as “the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect." Conrad could have been describing Amen Corner and the closing holes at Augusta. For all of its soothing aesthetics, the course is perhaps the greatest foe of all. The tributary to Rae’s Creek in front of the 13th green looks gentle and placid. With his prodigious length, McIlroy could have easily reached the par-5 in two, but with a three-shot lead, he wisely played conservatively, only to watch his poorly played third shot roll into the water. That narrow stream must have looked as vengeful as the mighty Congo. 

Justin Rose played one of the most impressive final rounds in Masters history while trying to chase down his friend and Ryder Cup teammate. Ten birdies! To birdie more than half the holes on Sunday at Augusta National is to discover the tunnel of perfect and impenetrable focus called “the zone.” Still, it would take a series of mistakes from McIlroy for Rose to get back in the tournament. 

Golf fans watched McIlroy hit two of the most sickening wedge shots imaginable, and held their breath every time he stood over a putt. In between, he treated the world to some of the most thrilling, skilled shots a golfer can hit. In the end, however, it wasn’t McIlroy against DeChambeau, the field, history, or even Rose: it was McIlroy against McIlroy. 

The Northern Irishman had put himself in a prison of his own making. To break out, he’d have to find the best version of himself. It had to play out this way, didn’t it? After chasing the green jacket for all of those years and enduring a major drought that had spanned more than a decade, McIlroy had to know this wouldn’t come easily. He first had to confront his own history. We all knew it.

Tens of millions of people watched the inner battle that was a lifetime in the making. Then as he stood over the wedge shot in the playoff – almost the same shot he had flared into the bunker in regulation – the elite McIlroy emerged.  

As he struck the final putt from almost the exact distance as the agonizing putt he missed on the 72nd hole at Pinehurst, the elite McIlroy prevailed. He was free at last. 

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