Rory McIlroy wins the 2025 Masters.
Apr 13, 2025; Augusta, Georgia; Harry Diamond holds the pin flag as Rory McIlroy falls to his knees in celebration after winning a playoff on the no. 18 green during the final round of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
Key Points
Scottie Scheffler dominated the 2025 season, winning six events, two majors, and $27.6 million.
[Editor’s note: This article is from Athlon Sports’ 2025 “Year in Review” magazine, which celebrates the year’s champions and relives the biggest moments from across the world of sports. Order your copy online today, or pick one up at retail racks and newsstands nationwide.]
A golf era ended on a long-ago quiet Monday at Scotland’s famed Carnoustie Golf Links.
Seve Ballesteros, Europe’s greatest player, announced his retirement from competition on the eve of the 2007 Open Championship. Seve, a first-name-only-needed celebrity, would tragically die of cancer four years later in his hometown of Pedrena, Spain.
While Seve’s legacy was being remembered and re-examined that week, a freckle-faced, mop-haired, 18-year-old lad from obscure Holywood, Northern Ireland, shot 68 in the Open’s first round. That just happened to be one stroke better than Tiger Woods, the world’s No. 1 player and his childhood hero. The teen went on to earn the silver medal as the Open’s low amateur player that week.
His name was Rory McIlroy.
What are the odds? One of Europe’s greatest all-time golfers departs and a future all-time great arrives in the same week. A sport’s torch rarely passes so neatly.
McIlroy’s long path to ultimate European GOAT-ness reached the pinnacle in April when he finally landed his white whale, the Masters Tournament.
That stirring victory enabled him to enter golf’s most elite club, the winners of all four professional Grand Slam events: Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship. Only five men had won the career Grand Slam. McIlroy made it six, joining Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Any argument that McIlroy isn’t Europe’s greatest player stops there.
The career Grand Slam may be underappreciated as a milestone because Woods made it look so ridiculously easy. He won the career Slam three times while racking up 15 majors, and he went from zero-to-career Slam in just over three years after his breakthrough 1997 Masters win.
Rory McIlroy shakes hands with Scott Scheffler on the 18th green during the second round of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 12, 2024. — Source: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
So do the math. Unless you are at least 59 years old, the only career Grand Slam you saw was Woods’. Nicklaus was the last to do it before Tiger way back in 1966 when Pontiacs and milkmen still existed. Consider yourself lucky to be alive, all you fifty-somethings and younger, to have witnessed two players complete career Grand Slams in the 21st century.
Unlike Woods, McIlroy didn’t make it look easy. His career Slam quest required 15 years from his first major — the 2010 U.S. Open — to last April. That’s when he tapped in a two-footer to beat Justin Rose on the first playoff hole to win the Masters. And “tapped in” doesn’t adequately describe that life-changing putt. Just ask Scott Hoch (1989 Masters) or Doug Sanders (1970 Open Championship), two men who lost majors due to missed short putts. Better yet, don’t ask.
“Rory wasn’t thinking about the Grand Slam, he was thinking about the Masters,” Jack Nicklaus said after Rory’s win. “If you gave him his choice of a career Grand Slam or win the Masters, he’d say the Masters 100 percent of the time.”
Jack is right, as usual. McIlroy was carrying a lot of baggage en route to his Slam. First, it appeared he was in danger of joining Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin and others on the list of the best players to never win a Masters. He’d been close but never close enough.
Second, McIlroy hadn’t won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla, and to be blunt, he had let numerous chances slip through his fingers at majors over the previous decade.
Third, the Masters was always special to McIlroy. He was just 21 in 2011 when he carried a four-shot lead into the Masters’ final round before he famously/infamously yanked his tee shot on the 10th hole so far left into the pines that it mingled with the Augusta National Golf Club’s private cabins. McIlroy made a double bogey, lost his confidence, shot 43 on the final nine for a closing 80 in a stunningly ugly meltdown.
The collapse steeled him, he was able to win the U.S. Open just a few months later, followed by three more majors in the next three years. But when the Masters was all that stood behind McIlroy and the career Slam, it came with enough baggage for multiple skycaps.
Some questioned whether McIlroy, who would turn 36 in May, had missed his window of opportunity to put on a green jacket. Even McIlroy. “I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” he said. “That’s a hard load to carry, it really is.”
That probably played a factor in why McIlroy had such difficulty in finishing off this Masters victory. The final round was a rollercoaster, a series of brilliant shots mixed with stupefying blunders.
The most memorable setback came at the 72nd hole. McIlroy had just stuck an 8-iron shot to two feet at the 17th and made a go-ahead birdie. He was in perfect position to finish it off in the fairway at 18, just a simple sand wedge from 127 yards. Somehow, some way—all right, the prospect of a green jacket and the career Grand Slam surely weighed heavily—he fanned the shot into a greenside bunker. He splashed it out nicely and had a six-foot par putt to win the Masters. The gallery groaned as his putt slid past the hole.
On the way to the sudden-death showdown with Rose, McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond, broke the tension. He reminded his boss, also his childhood friend, “We would have taken this (a playoff) on Monday morning.” McIlroy managed to smile and play the 18th again, hitting the perfect approach this time, stuffing it to two feet. After Rose missed his birdie try, McIlroy had his moment.
Rose was among the first to grasp the significance, graciously telling him, “I am glad I was here on this green to witness you win the career Grand Slam. That’s such a cool, momentous moment in the game.”
Momentous is the correct word. One generation’s greatest-ever Masters was the 1986 edition, when Jack Nicklaus came out of hibernation and won the Masters at age 46 with a 30 on the closing nine, a surprising encore and the last of his 18 major championships.
What McIlroy did, the dramatic way he did it and how he wrote a new chapter of his legacy will make the 2025 tournament the best-ever Masters for a new generation.
When he first met with the media after the victory, McIlroy playfully erased his ghosts of Augusta past with his opening remark, “So, what are we going to talk about next year?”
Raucous laughter ensued. McIlroy smiled. He finally had his green jacket and his career slam. It was, indeed, grand.
Sept 28, 2025; Bethpage, NY; Team USA’s Scottie Scheffler hits his tee shot on the 2nd hole during the singles on the final day of competition for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. — Source: Paul Childs-Imagn Images
Season in Review
Scottie Scheffler surprised members of the media at the Memorial Tournament.
He arrived in the interview room after the third round at the same time his post-round interview with CBS was airing on television. The media assumed the CBS chat was live and weren’t expecting him yet. Scheffler spotted the monitor and realized why the reporters were surprised. “I can transport,” he quipped.
Well, the man is enjoying an unchallenged reign as the world’s No. 1 player. Maybe Scheffler has extraordinary otherworldly skills, too. And a sense of humor.
It is time to pass out awards for the 2025 PGA Tour season and Scheffler is going to get most of them. So beam yourself up, Scottie, to the awards podium…
Scheffler was famously arrested and jailed by Louisville police for a traffic stop incident while on his way to the 2024 PGA Championship’s first round at Valhalla.
He landed a cameo role in “Happy Gilmore 2,” and got arrested. “Oh, no, not again,” his character groans before quipping that he already knows the jail routine.
Hollywood insiders say his performance is generating Oscar buzz. (Or did Shooter McGavin tweet that?)
Six wins, two majors and 17 top-10 finishes in 20 starts for Scheffler. That’s right, he batted .850 in top-10 finishes, a little bit Tiger-esque.
His six victories were twice as many as Rory McIlroy, the next-biggest winner. Scheffler was in a class by himself.
He racked up $27.6 million in winnings, well ahead of Tommy Fleetwood’s $18.5 million ($10 million of which came from the Tour Championship). Tiger won $120 million in his career, and Scheffler already ranks third on the all-time list with $99 million.
He joined Jack Nicklaus and Woods as the only players in the modern era to win at least 15 PGA Tour events, including three majors, before the age of 29.
How dominating was Scheffler’s game? He won the PGA Championship by five strokes, the Open Championship by four, the Memorial Tournament by four and the CJ Cup Byron Nelson by eight.
Is this even a fair fight anymore?
Only ravioli stopped Scheffler early in 2025. While in a rental house in December, he decided to make ravioli and used a wine glass to roll the dough. Bad idea. The glass shattered, cut his hand and he had surgery. Fast-forward to April and the Masters, and Scheffler’s champions dinner lineup of appetizers included the amusingly titled “Papa Scheff’s meatball and ravioli bites.” Wine-glass shards not included.
Shot of the Year, Non-Major Division
The BMW Championship leader was 27 yards from the hole at Caves Valley’s treacherous par-3 17th and pitching over a mound to a downslope with water beyond the pin. He lofted a high flop shot and, 14 seconds after it landed, the ball magically dribbled into the cup. The author of that stunning shot? Scheffler.
In the non-Scheffler portion of the season…
Shot of the Year, Major Division
The Masters’ biggest shot wasn’t the most demanding, just the most significant. McIlroy hit a superb wedge shot on the 18th and first playoff hole that caught the slope and trickled to within three feet of the cup. He sank the putt to complete the career Grand Slam.
All Rory McIlroy did was win at Pebble Beach, TPC Sawgrass, Augusta National — the last two in playoffs — and become the first player in a quarter-century to complete the career Grand Slam. He also helped Europe score a sweet Ryder Cup victory in front of obnoxious New York fans (sorry for that redundancy). Think he’d trade his three wins for Scheffler’s two majors and four other W’s? Not a chance.
Greatest Walk-off Putt
In March, J.J. Spaun was just some guy who got beat by McIlroy in a lopsided three-hole playoff at The Players Championship. In June, he was the U.S. Open champion, author of the most memorable winning putt in major championship history — a 64-footer that took eight seconds to roll across Oakmont’s 18th green before dropping. Once a walk-on for San Diego State’s golf team, Spaun won the Open 10 years after winning the Canadian Tour Order of Merit. That’s called upgrading.
The Best $10 Million Validation
In his 164th PGA Tour start, England’s Tommy Fleetwood got his first victory, ending a series of agonizing close calls. He won the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup first prize of $10 million. “It completes the story of near-misses,” Fleetwood said.
For the first time in his career, Tiger Woods did not play a single round of golf in competition (not counting exhibitions) due to a torn Achilles tendon. He also had disk surgery on his back in October, dampening his outlook for 2026, when he will be 50 and eligible for PGA Tour Champions.
Only one player in PGA Tour history achieved this rare scoring feat and it’s… Jake Knapp? You’ll be ready for Trivia Night with this nugget. Knapp, who won the 2024 Mexico Open, shot 59 in the Cognizant Classic and 61 in the Rocket Classic, becoming the first player to fire a 59 and also post a 61 or better in the same season. Punchline: He didn’t win either event.
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