Issue No. 185 | April 13, 2025
AUGUSTA, Ga. — It was August 2023. We met for dinner at the Four Seasons in Atlanta. I do not know if I’m supposed to tell this story, but it is important — perhaps paramount — to help explain just who Rory is.
He ordered a steak. I ordered a salad. We talked for three hours.
At one point, he told me that he’d read parts of Normal Sport 2, the second book we published. When he got to the part about St. Andrews, the 150th Open that left him reeling in disbelief, he looked down and then back up.
“I wept,” he whispered.
I could barely hear him. I leaned in, and he said it again.
“I … wept.”
Today’s newsletter — and much of this entire ridiculous enterprise — was made possible because of the support of Meridian Putters.
Meridian makes putters. That’s it. Not drivers, not wedges. Just putters. And they’re really good at it. Both their blade (The Seaside) and mallet (The Kiawah — shoutout Rory’s second major, of now five!) series earned gold on the 2025 Golf Digest Hot List.
Beyond that, the story behind Meridian is genuinely compelling. I did a Q&A with their founder, Ryan Duffey, which will be published in the newsletter in the coming weeks.
I’m excited for you hear from him. Not as excited as I was to hear from Rory on Sunday, but still excited.
Meridian cares deeply about their product, and it shows. That’s the kind of thing we’re aiming for at Normal Sport too. You should support them, if only because they support us. You can check them out right here.
OK, onto the final round.
Rory cries a lot. All the time, it seems.
It is his greatest trait, the one that makes him whole.
I think it’s why we love him, why he’s meant the most.
The boy who bawled his eyes out 14 years ago after kicking away the best chance he thought he’d ever have is now a man.
Time has rolled on, but deep down he hasn’t changed. He remained a boy who dreamed. The preservation of his own humanity.
On Sunday, all those dreams came true.
Rory lived a thousand lives in a single afternoon.
So many shots made the slam feel like it was within his grasp. Then the very next one somehow made it disappear. It was a round in which golf history seemed to shift with every strike. A day that forced even those who have been on the Spieth rollercoaster for a decade to beg for relief.
We picked him up on 10 when a birdie made it five. I looked at Jamie Weir and said, “That’s it. It is over.”
It was not.
I should have known. I wrote the whole thing on Monday! You think that you have a Masters, until it slips between your grasp.
That’s what this place does, and it would never be a rout.
It felt as if it would, though, and so I walked up to the phone. I was shaking as I dialed the only number that I know.
My wife answered. “Could you … put Jude on the phone,” I barely could get out. “I want to tell him something.”
My 11 year old’s voice nearly broke my heart.
He sounded so young. Like the boy that Rory was when he watched Tiger win the 1997 Masters with his own dad.
“Hey buddy,” I choked.
“I wanted to make sure you were watching. This one will be special.”
“I’m watching, dad. I think Rory’s gonna win.”
I’ll never forget that line for as long as I will live.
I don’t remember what I said, but I wanted him to know that even in the midst of all the chaos, I was thinking just of him.
He will have his own dreams some day, and he won’t remember much. But the greatest Masters of his lifetime at an age when the Masters means a lot. That one he will remember.
And when he’s 21 or 31, I want him to carry around the memory that I loved him enough to try and share the moment from 1,000 miles away. My hands shook as I hung up the phone just as Rory’s hands would shake for the next hour and a half.
I never thought that he would do it, if we are being honest. The mountain seemed too tall. The task beyond belief.
“You know, you've had Jack, Gary, Tom, Tiger, you name it, come through here, and all say that I'll win the Masters one day,” said Rory.
“That's a hard load to carry, it is. It really is.”
Four doubles in a week, and he kept on bouncing back? How is it possible to have that much resilience at a place that has crushed your heart, one that you have learned to fear?
What shot will you remember?
I walked with my friends throughout the final nine. On 14 with too many feet for par, I looked up at Porath. “If he misses this I don’t know that he can recover,” he noted.
I think that I agreed. I didn’t know if I could either.
Behind the tree on 15, KVV and Neil were just a few feet away. KVV hugged me as I told him that I had called my son. We are emotional basket cases so much of the time. Brothers in that sense, we have cried some tears together.
“Is he going for it,” I asked him, before Rory wailed away.
As we listened for a noise that would determine the rest of his career, KVV closed his eyes. The world seemed to pause for an extra beat or two. When he opened them, all he found was me screaming in his face.
The shot of his life.
Surely this was it.
He must have played 100 holes today. It could not have just been 19. Did any of this happen, or will we wake up on Monday with another round to go?
He stood on 18, never knowing that he would need to play it more than once. The roar just up ahead was so loud we thought that Pat Reed had somehow holed out. That wasn’t it, though. They had just put Rory’s red 12 on the massive board.
The patrons lost their minds.
And then Rory may have lost his from 125 away.
Did you think that it would be easy? That 11 years would turn to vapor at the snap of his fingers? That the second man to win the slam in the last 55 years would be straightforward and simple?
Surely you did not.
It ended in a flash with the ghosts all gone for good.
Masters champion, grand slam winner, greatest European of all time, the best day of his extraordinary golf life.
The euphoria was expected, but it was more primal than I imagined.
The weight of the world is heavy. Expectation has a price.
The kid caught his dream, though, once he become a man. And the boy cried into his girl’s face and told her that he loved her.
The shots on 15 were great, but remember this forever.
“What is it you love about Rory McIlroy?” is a question I have been asking and considering throughout this entire week.
I guess the bad but truthful answer is that there isn’t just one thing.
Those last two approach shots into 15 — of all the holes! — I’ll think about those for a long time. The one on Saturday was great, but the one on Sunday belongs in a museum. Of course he missed the putt.
That was always how it would go.
I have never felt that way about a stupid round of golf. Desirous of an outcome, yes, but why? Why do I care about this kid from Northern Ireland who was given all the gifts?
It should not mean this much.
But the heart wants what it wants, and maybe deep down it knew. That when the birdie dropped, he would completely fall apart.
Surely that was the reaction of our golf lifetime.
The burden gone forever, the demons in the dirt.
At the jacket ceremony with Scottie, he choked up once again. As he addressed his daughter, he couldn’t continue on.
“Never give up on your dreams,” he squeaked out.
Nobody could speak.
Finally, at the presser, he had to take a pause.
“I've known Harry since I was seven years old,” he breathed out.
“I met him on the putting green at Holywood Golf Club. We've had so many good times together. He's been like a big brother to me the whole way through my life.”
The greatest of his generation. It’s indisputable now. One of the best to ever play. Up until the very end, it was difficult to believe.
Then his face hit the ground and the shape of golf changed.
It is unlikely that he will change with it. Because the most unique and admirable thing about Rory McIlroy is not about the slam.
It’s that he embraces his own heart.
Professional golf — professional sport — is a meat grinder. It will jade you and wear you down until you have nothing left. Superstars of sport most — not least, but most — of all.
He somehow has preserved not only a joy for the game, but a vulnerability that’s unique. In another world, he is watching somebody he admires, calling his own kid from a landline on the other side of the country, delighting in it all.
In this world, though, he got it all. He is in the pantheon.
With the golf gods now.
And among them, surely, he must be the most human.
If you are not subscribed to the Normal Sport newsletter, you can do so here. Thank you for reading our Masters work this week. I’ve never had more fun covering a tournament. I still cannot believe it happened.
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