Golf · 2025 · Augusta, USA
McIlroy Completes the Career Grand Slam
Eleven years after his last major, Rory McIlroy survives a final-round collapse and a play-off to win the Masters, becoming only the sixth man to complete golf's career Grand Slam.
Won play-off vs. Justin Rose
Result
11
Years since previous major
6th men's career Grand Slam
Distinction
Rory McIlroy had won the other three men's majors, the US Open, the Open Championship and the PGA Championship, by the age of 25, but the Masters, the one major he needed to complete the career Grand Slam, had eluded him for over a decade of near misses since his infamous final-round collapse there in 2011.
His 2025 final round was itself a rollercoaster: a double bogey on the very first hole cost him his overnight lead, and he surrendered a four-shot cushion over his closing six holes before bogeying the 72nd hole to fall into a play-off at 11-under, matched by Justin Rose's closing 66, one of the great final-round comebacks in the tournament's own history.
McIlroy won the sudden-death play-off at the first extra hole, dropping to his knees in tears at the very spot on which his 2011 collapse had once seemed to close the door on this achievement. At 35, he became only the sixth male golfer, after Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, to win all four modern men's majors across a career.
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