Exhausting.
That’s the only one-word summary I can think of to describe what happened Sunday. It was completely exhausting.
You’ve no doubt heard every possible media source, both formal and informal, and the man himself talk about how crazy it was. What a roller coaster of a day it was. How emotionally exhausting it was.
But you know what’s kind of odd? Rory didn’t actually seem all that exhausted by all of it. Sure he looked relieved. But he did seemingly a thousand interviews Sunday evening and he looked completely put together and carrying himself exactly the same as the pre-tournament presser.
I found this odd, considering there were, by my count, 6 lead changes between Rory, Rose, and Bryson. There were 5 two-shot swings, and a three-shot swing on 13 after Rose birdied it a few groups ahead, and then Rory came through and doubled it.
Rory was up by as much as 5 shots going into hole 11. And yet he was losing after hole 14.
I’ve had a dozen conversations with different people since Sunday, from friends to clients to my wife’s doctor in the waiting room- and every single person talked about how Rory was dead set on giving it away, but didn’t. He persisted.
I think the way Rory was able to be so composed afterward was because he’s been training his whole life for this one day. Or if not his whole life, then the last 10 years for sure. The amount of heartbreaks he’s had is staggering. St. Andrews, LACC, Pinehurst, come to mind. And to a degree, every Masters he’s ever played. And yet, he shows up the next time and plays as if it’s the first time.
Without all of those heartbreaks, he would’ve made double on hole 1 and a sloppy par on 2 and said “Here we go again. I guess it’s just not meant to be.” But nope, he makes incredible birdies on 3 and 4, right back in it. Then a solid par on 5, an incredible recovery on 7, and great birdies on 9 and 10 to take a commanding lead.
Then he nearly knocked it in the water on 11 and makes bogey. A solid par on 12. But then quite possibly the biggest choke of a wedge shot in Masters history to make double on 13, and an ugly bogey on 14. This time for sure he’s got to be thinking “I can’t get it done. I just always choke these things away.”
But nope, what does he do instead? He hits one of the best shots in Masters history on 15 for an easy two-putt birdie, a great iron shot into 16 and 17, and makes the birdie to take a one shot lead into 18. Yet another unbelievable mental bounce back.
Surely at this point he’s steadied himself. He’s gone through two massive setbacks, and bounced back from both. He just has to make par on 18 and the Green Jacket and the Career Grand Slam is his.
Wrong. He hit an amazing drive, but dumps a relatively simple wedge approach into the bunker. Somehow hits a great bunker shot to 5 feet. But then misses the 5 footer for the win. That’s two mini-chokes on one hole!
How easy would it have been to say “Well, I gave it my best and just couldn’t pull it off. I’ll just never get this one. This is too big of a wave to ride.”
But nope, what does he do instead? He and Harry (his caddie) gather themselves for the playoff on 18, he annihilates a drive, stuffs his wedge to 3 feet, and this time he makes the Masters-ending putt.
Yet. Another. Bounce back.
It Finally Happened
I got an email from a listener who had some nice things to say about my Rory Masters recap podcast on Monday. I thought what he said was so representative of how I feel:
I didn’t think it would be possible to like him more after the tournament but I certainly do. And I think it’s because, like most of us, he’s ever so slightly flawed. Unlike Tiger, whose mind was and is his greatest weapon, Rory probably still wanders around feeling like an imposter at times. I just wanted to share these comments because I think this is a victory that is really important for the game of golf. The good guy won. And, like you, I was feeling physically sick for a good part of the afternoon. When it was over, I wasn’t any richer but I somehow felt like I had finally triumphed. That’s golf at its most elemental, and something we desperately needed in a sporting era that is increasingly about millions of dollars.
Everything is Training
I don’t know if any of us have felt the level of pressure that Rory was facing on Sunday. But we certainly all have our own proportionate version of it. I know I have. And with that pressure will inevitably come struggles, chokes, and heartbreaks.
But do we just roll over and give up? It would be SO EASY to just give up. It takes so much more energy to persevere. Resilience is an exhausting trait.
But Rory showed us this: it’s worth it. The heartbreaks, the set backs, the chokes. They’re all worth it.
As Rory said after he narrowly lost the 2023 U.S. Open at LACC, “I would go through a hundred Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”
Well, Sunday of the 2025 Masters was another one of those Sundays, but this time, resilience won. And all of those Sundays ending in heartbreak are what made this Sunday possible.
Everything is training. Every time you encounter difficulty, what you do next is training for the future. How you respond to difficulty trains your brain for how it’s going to handle it the next time. If Rory hadn’t had those optimistic explanations of failure for all of those years, then he could’ve, and probably would’ve, lost the 2025 Masters.
But he trained that optimism. Time and time again he explained those losses to himself in a way that helped him, not hurt him. And we can do that too.
One thing for you to work on this week:
You will inevitably encounter difficulty this week, this month, or this year. Maybe even a choke under pressure or a heartbreaking loss. How you explain to yourself and interpret what happened is everything. Respond in a way that trains you to be stronger for the future, because the next heartbreak is always coming.
To-do: Encounter difficulty, pressure, or heartbreak, and interpret it optimistically. i.e. “This was just one bad outcome and I did my very best. And I’ll keep doing my best.”