Issue No. 188 | April 19, 2025

I don’t think I have ever seen the outpouring of emails, DMs, texts etc. from my golf friends and/or you, the reader, like I did on Sunday.

When Rory let it all go, it felt like everyone else could, too.

This is odd — this parasocial relationship — and I struggle with it. But as has been discussed, the combination of his heart and his hope and his humanity makes him feel like he’s us with just a bit more talent.

I have been thinking about why all of this is true a lot this week, and the mini essay below about what he’s been carrying around is the best I could come up with.

I hope you enjoy it.

Speaking of carrying things around!

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The Great Unburdening

Life is hard.

There is nothing — no pile of money large enough, no success enduring enough nor achievement lofty enough — that will undo that reality.

From the poorest people on earth to those who have it all, the human experience touches everyone. This plays out in a thousand different ways, and there are certainly varying degrees — it is harder for some than others — but this underlying truth is fundamental and immutable.

Life is hard.

It always has been, it always will be.

I have been thinking a lot about why Rory’s win at Augusta National resonated so deeply, so emotionally, so effusively. Some of it, certainly, is because we were rooting for the first interview we did as a business to win the first major we covered of who he is, because of what that tournament means and because he’s now one of four living humans who have won all four major championships.

But more of it, I think, is because of how it happened — the nearly decade and a half of waiting and striving, of taking on the weight of the world. The shedding of a favorite statement from everyone in golf when you asked what they believed: of course — OF COURSE — Rory McIlroy will win a Masters.

So much of why it resonated has absolutely nothing to do with Rory McIlroy, the Masters or the career slam. No, instead, I think it has to do with us.

With you.

This win has resonated beyond the fact that it’s Rory — well beyond him, I think — and it seems as if we have moved beyond golf and even sport itself. We are post-whatever it was that played out on Sunday afternoon when he found himself gasping for air and grasping for a crevice to hold on to.

I literally saw grown men crying.

Under the big tree by the clubhouse, as I walked away from the jacket ceremony, I saw an older gentleman, as hardened by age as he was by the sun. He shamelessly wiped his eyes. The boy from Northern Ireland with the swing of dreams had finally closed the loop. And this man — who has seen so much life — was brought to tears.

But honestly … why?

The answer can be found at the very end.

When he rattled home the putt that slayed 10,000 demons, you can, if you squint, nearly see all those things he carried slide right off his back.

Nobody reading this — I should say, almost nobody reading this — carries around that specific burden. But the oppression that this particular expectation brought about is emblematic of the life that we’re all living.

Nobody drags around the weight of the slam, but everybody drags around something. And most of us have been dragging that something around for a long, long time.

This is specifically and uniquely why the redemption of Rory McIlroy’s Masters win, 14 years after his Masters loss, resonated so deeply and so unequivocally with those who watched. Because if he can be unburdened after all that time, all that normalizing and all that doubt that he would ever shake it loose, then maybe … maybe … you and I can be too.

Tiger’s win in 2019, I’ll never forget it. Never forget standing in the walkway on 15 and staring down the hill thinking he made a 1 on 16 to win the Masters. Hahaha, what a ludicrous thing that would have been. Even more ludicrous than a 44-year-old lion named Tiger drawing one final golf-related breath. That one crushed, and it made us feel things. But it reminded us of him, not really of ourselves.

Bryson may be the “people’s golfer” but nobody reminds more people of themselves than Rory. The asinine decisions? We’ve made those. The unabashed desire? We have that. The fear of the future and the pride of the fight? Yes.

The humanity? He contains it all.

Mostly, though, it’s the hope.

They say it’s the hope that kills you, but that’s not really true, is it. No, it’s truer to say it’s the hope that helps you.

No, what upended the hearts of those who watched was the hope that we, too, might be unburdened of the albatross in our life, of that which we were not meant to drag around for another year or even another day.

Life is hard.

It’s hard for everyone in different ways. Some of us are carrying around anxiety and insecurity. Others of us the fear that we are not enough. Many of us are shouldering the weariness of parenting, of wondering how it will all turn out. Career dreams unfulfilled, unspeakable loss of friends or family. Everything in between. Everyone is carrying something. Just because Rory’s demons were out there in the public, for all the world to see, doesn’t mean that other people don’t have them, even if they’re buttoned up.

A ridiculously-colored sports jacket cannot truly unburden, of course. That would be a preposterous thing to say. Nor can a treacly dinner on the second Tuesday in April. Winning the Masters does not fulfill, not ultimately. But in this case, it does point to the truth that hoping is not futile, that there is a greater hope to be had and the arrival of that hope can lead to our own great unburdening.

A thing I have been thinking a lot on this Easter weekend: We were not meant to carry around these weights. Atlas is mythological for a reason.

So when you watch the ending, as I’m sure you have a thousand times, pay attention to how he looks, what you can see.

Rory hoped against all hope. He hoped with no guarantee. He hoped in the face of despair and anguish. And the burden finally left him. He’s almost a different person now. It was all over his face, and you could almost see his body falter under such a change.

He told me in the aftermath that no round of golf will ever be that hard again. That everything will be easier than it was that day. This could not make more sense, and it’s why there will be books about that week and that day and that journey he was on — the one he had to take. It did not have to go this way, but it was the best way it could go.

For what it taught him, for what it taught us.

Because as you rewatch the things he was feeling, there is one thing that is obvious. As Rory McIlroy changed history with his 280th (and final) stroke, you can clearly see that the only thing greater than the relief of joy is the joy of sweet relief.

Thank you for reading until the end.

It has been a week.

Your comments and responses to this ridiculous newsletter about iguana merchants and a hope beyond hope have given me juice over the last 10 days.

Thank you for reading a newsletter about golf that is 1,560 words long. Your support of our business is just as appreciated as a Rory win at the Masters. Because without you, dear reader, there is no place for all these crazy thoughts to land.