HARTFORD, Connecticut – The Travelers Championship will have at least one reigning major champion in June.
Rory McIlroy, arguably the most popular player in golf today, recovered from a gut-wrenching bogey on the 18th hole with a 3-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole that beat Justin Rose in the 69th Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday April 13 and made the Northern Irishman only the sixth player to capture the career Grand Slam.
When McIlroy’s final stroke disappeared into the cup, he looked skyward and then fell to his knees and sobbed for 20 seconds in the start of a memorable show of overflowing emotion. He shared a lengthy hug with his caddie, Harry Diamond, Rose, a frequent Ryder Cup teammate, and the Englishman’s caddie, then walked off the green as roars of “Ro-ry, Ro-ry, Ro-ry” echoed through the Georgia pines. His first stops on the way to the clubhouse were hugs for wife Erica and 4-year-old daughter Poppy, who became a celebrity of sorts during the Par 3 Contest on Wednesday when she sank a long putt on the final hole that went viral on social media.
“A lot of pent-up emotion came out on the 18th green,” a smiling McIlroy said during a ceremony in the Butler Cabin in which defending champion and reigning Travelers Championship titlist Scottie Scheffler put the coveted green jacket on the winner.
Achieving a goal that he had dreamed about since turning pro in 2007 at 18 years old took even longer than expected. He made a birdie on the Augusta National Golf Club’s 17th hole but bogeyed No. 18 to force a playoff in a wildly topsy-turvy close to the first major championship of the year.
“This is the best day of my golfing life,” said McIlroy, who was making his 11th attempt to complete the career Grand Slam. “This is my 17th time I here, and I started to wonder if it would ever be my time. The last 10 years coming here with the burden of the Grand Slam on my shoulders and trying to achieve that. … This is something that I’d dreamed about for a long time and was really nervous today, though the double bogey on the first hole actually calmed me down.
“But it was one of the toughest days that I had on the golf course because it was such a roller-coaster, and I’m really proud of the way that I responded to all of the adversity that I had (four double bogeys for the week).”
McIlroy, 35, began the final round with a two-stroke that he lost to playing partner Bryson DeChambeau on the first hole when he drove into a fairway bunker and made a double-bogey 6. He fell a shot behind DeChambeau when he drove into another fairway bunker and made a par 5 on the easy second hole. But two crisp iron shots and a miraculous recovery from the trees set up birdies at the third, fourth and seventh holes that led to a four-stroke lead at the turn.
But McIlroy lost his edge thanks to an inexplicable double-bogey 7 at the 13th hole, where he dumped a wedge shot into Rae’s Creek from 60 yards. But he then struck one of the shots of his life, a hooking, 207-yard 7-iron around a tree to 6 feet to set up an eagle 3 at the 15th hole. He hit a 176-yard 8-iron to 3 feet for a birdie 3 at No. 17 for a one-stroke lead over Rose, who had made a 20-foot putt for birdie at the 18th for a 6-under-par 66 and 72-hole total of 11-under 277.
But McIlroy’s wedge deserted him again at the 18th hole, where he hit his approach into the right bunker and then missed a 5-foot putt for the victory, settling for a 73. But minutes later, McIlroy hit his drive on the first playoff hole, No. 18, within two yards of where his ball stopped on the final hole of regulation and then spun a gap wedge to 3 feet to win the first Masters playoff since Sergio Garcia defeated Rose in 2017.
Historically, McIlroy joined Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only winners of the career Grand Slam. Rose, 44, would have been the oldest to win the Masters for the first time, but instead, he was runner-up in a second consecutive major championship, having finished two behind 2022 Travelers Championship winner Xander Schauffele in the 2024 Open Championship.
Rose carded 10 birdies Sunday, and he and McIlroy finished two ahead of 2018 champion Patrick Reed (69) and three in front of Scheffler (69). DeChambeau (75) tied for fifth with Sungjae Im (69) at 281.
McIlroy is now a 29-time PGA Tour winner, including thrice this year in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Players Championship and the Masters. His four previous major championship titles came in the 2011 U.S. Open, 2012 PGA Championship, 2014 Open Championship and 2014 PGA Championship. This was McIlroy’s 17th Masters appearance and his first time with the 54-hole lead since 2011, where he closed with 80 to finish in a tie for 15th.
McIlroy, ranked second in the world behind Scheffler, will be in the Travelers Championship on June 19-22 at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell for the sixth time. Connecticut’s biggest sporting event is one of the PGA Tour’s eight Signature events with a $20 million purse, $3.6 million first prize, no cut and a limited field of 70 players, including most of the top-ranked players.
“It’s great for our fans to have a player of Rory’s caliber committing to this year’s Travelers Championship,” Andy Bessette, exective vice president and chief administrative officer at Travelers, said in a release when he committed last week. “His accomplishments speak for themselves, he’s a Hall of Fame talent. But he’s also a Hall of Fame person, passionate about the game and supportive of our model of benefiting charities. He’s been a great partner, and Rory is truly one of a kind.”
Tournament director Nathan Grube added, “Rory is playing some of the best golf of his career this year, and with everything he’s done, that’s saying something. He’s played well at TPC River Highlands, too, never finishing outside the top 20 (in five starts). Rory will definitely be one to watch this year, and I know our fans will be excited to see and cheer for him.”
McIlroy is a three-time PGA Tour Player of the Year (2012, 2014, 2019) and three-time winner of the Tour’s FedExCup season-long points title (2016, 2019, 2022). He’s a seven-time Ryder Cup member of Team Europe (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2023), competed in the Olympic Games in 2021 and 2024 and has 11 tournament victories on the DP World Tour. He is No. 1 in the FedExCup rankings this year.
