Rory McIlroy’s thrilling victory at Augusta National was meaningful in many ways.
The Masters victory allowed McIlroy to realize a lifelong dream by overcoming his demons, becoming the sixth person in history to complete the Grand Slam career and ultimately giving him a major championship victory with his childhood friend Harry Diamond in the bag.
“I’ve known Harry since I was seven years old,” McIlroy said on Sunday evening. ‘We’ve had it So many good times together.
“To be able to share this with him after all the close conversations we’ve had, all the bullshit he’s had to take from people who know nothing about the game, yeah, this one is as much his as it is mine.”
In the months since his Masters victory, McIlroy has spoken of wanting to win the other majors with Diamond, and to do so at cathedrals like Pebble Beach and the Old Course at St. Andrews. McIlroy and Diamond have now achieved everything together. While there is surely more to come, McIlroy’s right-hand man gave him a fitting gift at the Australian Open to commemorate their momentous Masters victory: an Augusta National scorecard signed by all career Grand Slam winners.
“Harry gave this to me as an early Christmas present in Australia,” says McIlroy told The Shotgun Starting Point. “He brought me this with a Sharpie and said, ‘Would you like to sign it?’ And I said, ‘No, absolutely not.’
“I said, ‘I just hope I don’t have to get Scottie [Scheffler] to sign it next year.”
After McIlroy missed by 6 feet on the 18th hole to win, he and Diamond gathered behind the clubhouse as they prepared for a playoff with Justin Rose. That’s when Diamond delivered a message that allowed a shell-shocked McIlroy to fast-forward through a turbulent 18 holes and get right for his duel with Rose.
“He said to me, ‘Well, buddy, we would have done this on Monday morning,’” McIlroy said in his victory presser in Augusta. “I’m like, ‘Yes, we absolutely would have done that.’ That was an easy reset. Basically he said to me, ‘Look, you would have given your right arm to play in the playoffs early this week.’ So that kind of reframed it for me.
The rest is history.
McIlroy cleared his tee shot and tucked his approach shot in tight for a career-defining and Grand Slam-clinching birdie.
A round that started with McIlroy preparing for an 18-hole battle with Bryson DeChambeau ended with McIlroy having to overcome his own ghosts to finally don the green jacket. It would never happen otherwise.
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