The 2025 Master was featured in the book and I was not disappointed.
After the final round of the roller coaster, Rory McIlroy made a birdie on the first playoff hole to defeat Justin Rose to complete his career grand slam. The top five were third Patrick Reid, with Scotty Schaeffler in fourth, while Sungay was tied with Im and Bryson Decanbaugh in fifth place.
What does McIlroy mean for the rest of his season? Who else stood out? Who is your favorite of the remaining majors starting with the PGA Championship in mid-May?
We’ll be introducing some of the biggest questions that come up from Master and look forward to the rest of 2025 season.
Where will Rory go from here for the rest of the year?
Mark Schlabach: After waiting for a long time to capture the Green Jacket to complete a career grand slam and end a decade-plus drought without a major championship, you need to wonder if this isn’t going to cover up from Rory’s career.
McIlroy is one of the most talented and skilled golfers of his generation, winning more than 50 times the world, and reaching number one in the world golf rankings for over 100 weeks during his career.
The fact that he hadn’t won a major since the 2014 PGA Championship may have prevented him from joining Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods and others as some of the best golfers in history.
Currently, McIlroy doesn’t carry a 1,000-pound anvil around his neck every time he goes to the majors, especially when driving through Magnolia Lane at the Augusta National Golf Club.
“It was difficult today,” McIlroy said after Sunday’s round. “I was incredibly nervous this morning, as I saw with the double, I was really nervous in the first hole, but like I said, it calmed me down and I bouncing back and showed resilience that I had talked about a lot.
“Look, it was heavy weight to carry, and thankfully I don’t need to carry it, and it frees me, and I know I’ll come back here every year, it’s nice.”
Paolo Object: Before being asked at a post-round press conference for McIlroy, he relied on the media with smiles and questions: “What will you talk about next year?”
Don’t worry, Lori. The conversation has already shifted to the number of majors he can add to the total, not just the rest of his career, but also the rest of the year. But I play the Devil’s Advocate here and wonder how McIlroy can descend from this victory’s best.
All you need to see is McIlroy’s reaction on Green Sunday on the 18th, and know how much weight this was from his shoulder. So yes, I agree that he can now be released and focused on adding to his main totals, but the beauty and distress of this sport is that he will come out again in the next tournament.
McIlroy has been very determined to this process during the last 11 years of major droughts, particularly in the last four years, to continue to give him opportunities. Now, if he wants to continue tallying both PGA Tour victory and major championships, it’s fascinating to see how his hunger evolves and whether it will remain on the same level.
Good news? No one is playing better golf than he is now, and the majors of the year – Quail Hollow (won there four times), Oakmont, Royal Portrush (home game) – were all set in his favor.
Apart from Rory’s victory, what are your biggest points from the Masters this year?
Schlabach: World No. 1 golfer Scotty Scheffler didn’t have the best at Augusta National Golf Club last week, but he was enough to finish his solo fourth at 8 under. Schaeffler’s ironplay is just a bit off his world-class form, and he didn’t seem to have any momentum until Sunday’s 3-under 69 brought him closer to hunting as McIlroy confused the Second Nine.
Schaeffler hit 62% of the green and 71% of the fairways with 72 holes under regulations. He was ranked 26th among the players who cut with strokes: approach (.630), 58th in strokes: off from the tee (-.110).
“I think it was easy to get me frustrated with how I was playing, how I was swinging, what I was doing on the course. “I was proud of the way we hanged out there and made a good fight. …I think this was the best I could have been mentally the whole year. I don’t think my game was there.”
Schaeffler was about to join Nicklaus as the only golfer to win the Green Jacket three times in four years.
It will be interesting to see if McIlroy can chase Schaeffler through the top spots in the world rankings this season. Schaeffler was clearly the best player in the world in 2024, but hasn’t won this year. Rory is on the way to do what Scottie won three times last year at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Players Championship and The Masters.
uggetti: The golf world may be split in half, but the man, the major championships are still in a very good position. Think about it. Four times a year, the best players in the world finally mess it up with each other, as well as they bring a treasure trove of storylines to bite.
Over time since the establishment of Liv, the notion of conflict between the two aspects (at least on the course) has dissipated, instead of the more engaging storylines that tour meetings at its biggest stages bring.
This year’s Masters pushed the crop cream to the top, like last year’s US Open and the major championships of the past few years, giving them a dramatic finish and winner that felt like the right one. Major remains a tournament with all the plot and all the powers.
Perhaps one day there will be a reunification and a wider game would be better. But for now, the majors feel they are getting higher than ever, and they continue to offer.
The biggest winner from the master?
Schlabach: In addition to McIlroy, we’ll go with some aging former Masters champions, Zach Johnson and Bubba Watson.
Johnson, 49, fell to 289th in the world rankings after missing eight cuts in 2024, and was not 21st in the Sony Open in Hawaii this season. He didn’t play much golf last fall while watching his son play his senior high school soccer career. He seemed to be turning his eyes to the PGA Tour champions when he turned 50 next year.
Additionally, he has been battling an injury to his right elbow since last summer.
The 2007 Masters Champion won six birdies in an eight-hole stretch and made a 6-under 66 card on Saturday. He finished 8th at 5 under, earning his best PGA Tour finish since 2021.
“I still feel like I have it,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if pride is the right thing, I’m proud of it, whatever you want to call it.”
Watson, 46, did nothing in the Liv Golf League. His best finish of the season was tied for Saudi Arabia in the opener. He is currently 36th in individual points rankings.
However, the two-time master winners were low on their careers at 4 under 68 on Sunday, leading them to 14th at 3 under. It was his best finish at Augusta National since he finished 12th in 2019.
Watson had his 17th start at the Masters, but his knowledge of the course was a bonus.
“You’re always trying to get information,” Watson said. “But as you get older, that information doesn’t work as well as before.”
uggetti: If you’re going to the non-Ralph section, it’s easy to see Max Homa finishing with a tie on the 12th day.
Perhaps no one missed five consecutive cuts before arriving in Augusta and wasn’t looking for a more positive week look at the golf course coming this week than Homa, who was outspoken about how much he was fighting his swing.
So how do you get it right?
For Homa, the answer seems to be playing Augusta National for four days in a row. In the fourth round, Homa beat Pars every time.
“Amazing. This isn’t funny at all,” Homa said after cutting on Friday. “It feels good not to beat yourself here.”
Homa clearly felt some comfort here and he showed it. A year after he finished his tie in third place, his T-12 finish will win him an auto invitation for next year.
Of course, Homa isn’t just looking for a positive week like this. He is after consistency and victory. There’s a lot to do.
“The tough times don’t last long, and those who are tough do,” Homa said. “At the end of the day, if it comes out of your head, it’s just one event. You can just miss one cut and feel like garbage.
The greatest disappointment from the master
Schlabach: The PGA Tour and LIV Golf League do not seem to be close to solving the differences and reuniting the sport. So you can see the world’s best golfers compete with each other only three times this season.
There were a lot of big names who missed cuts at the Masters, but Liv Golf League captains Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson were among the biggest.
Five-time Major Championship winner Koepka missed the cut by making a quadruple 8 on the 18th hole in the second round. With three wins in the PGA Championship and two in the US Open, Koepka has finished outside the top 25 in his last six major championships.
Johnson, who won the 2016 US Open Master and the 2020 Master, didn’t play badly as he missed cuts in rounds of 74 and 73 in one over. However, the DJ missed a cut in the majors in four of his last six starts, and didn’t finish in the top 30 in the other two.
Smith’s departure to the Liv Golf League was one of the most surprising as it appeared to have reached the peak of his career after winning his 150th Open Championship at St Andrews, Scotland in 2023.
Are you too fond of other majors?
Schlabach: McIlroy will likely be the PGA Championship, the next major championship, held at the Quazul Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina from May 15-18. He won the Wells Fargo Championship on the same course four times in 2010, 2015, 2021 and 2024, setting two course records with 62 in 2010 and 62 five years later. It’s no surprise to see him add his sixth major and third PGA Championship title next month. Next month, he will win his second straight major alongside Rory.
We hope Schaeffler will win several times under his belt by the time he arrives at the US Open at Oakmont Country Club, a suburb of Pittsburgh on June 12-15. He scored three straight top 10 finishes in the majors last year before finishing 41st in Pinehurst No. 2. The player can control his ball and work in both ways, as he cannot bomb around Oakmont due to its narrow fairways and countless bunkers. Schaeffler has not experienced the entire season without a major championship victory.
McIlroy will also become a sentimental favorite when the Open Championship returned to Northern Ireland’s Royal Portrush on July 17-20. He missed the cut when the opening was last played in 2019, earning an 8-quadruple bogey in the first hole and a triple bogey in the opening round of 8 over 79. Look out for Irishman Shane Rawley, who won the previous Open Championship at the Royal Portrush. He also plays great golf.
uggetti: The mark has a favourite glued to it, so add a name that is worth considering.
LudvigÅberg is currently finishing in the top 10 for the second year in a row at Augusta, and despite having only one other top 12 finish in the majors with eight tries, his game is made to fit almost every possible major championship set up. The winners of the 2025 Genesis Invitational have a ball strike to compete with the likes of Scheffler and McIlroy. He repeatedly showed that he had the firepower to recharge, even when it was late on Sunday.
Keep an eye out for Xander Schauffele too. In Augusta this week, Schaufele didn’t appear to have peaked following a rib injury that sidelined him earlier this season, but he still lamented the T-8 finish after opening 73.
And of course, don’t forget who led the tournament after two holes on Sunday. DeChambeau does not discourage this loss from continuing to threaten him in major tournaments. Quail Hollow and Oakmont could be a set-up that favors the length of the decanberg and gives them the opportunity to add to his own main total.