Rory McIlroy is no stranger to entering the first major championship of the season with immense hype. With the 2025 Masters on the horizon, McIlroy appears closer than ever to capturing the ever-elusive green jacket given both his level of play and that of those around him.
For awhile, McIlroy completing the career grand slam felt like a matter of when, not if. However, despite seven top-10 finishes in nine years, his calling card at Augusta National became a weekend surge after a slow start to backdoor a solid finish. Rarely has Rory truly been a legitimate threat on a Sunday at Augusta.
The last few years have made it seem as if a Masters crown has only moved further out of his grasp. Following a missed cut in 2023, McIlroy finished T22 in 2024 all while watching the ascension of Scottie Scheffler as golf’s new dominant figure at Augusta. Fans have been left wondering whether McIlroy had indeeed missed his window.
Naturally, just as fans were beginning to pump the brakes on Rory optimism, McIlroy at age 35 has opened the 2025 season with the best start of his PGA Tour career.
Buzz off another strong performance Dubai — along with promises of a sharper swing and refined mental approach — were met with skepticism until he could prove that his game was capable of holding up in big moments. McIlroy’s win at Pebble Beach was a strong opening statement in that regard, but it was his performance at The Players Championship last weekend that made it impossible to refute his status as the PGA Tour’s hottest player and a worthy co-favorite alongside Scheffler entering April’s Masters.
McIlroy cruised past J.J. Spaun on Monday morning in a 3-hole aggregate playoff at TPC Sawgrass to win his second career Players and second tournament in four starts this year. The birdie on 16 was vintage McIlroy as he bombed a 338-yard drive over the corner to leave himself just a wedge into the par-5, setting up a stress-free two-putt to take an early advantage.
Yet it was not Rory’s ability to overpower a course that stood out in the playoff; rather, it was the control he showed with his short irons that was the separator on a windy morning in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
At the 17th, Rory flighted a 9-iron down into the wind with a three-quarter swing and found the back tier of the island green as Spaun launched an 8-iron through the breeze and over everything, sinking his Players dreams alongside his Srixon. On the 18th, McIlroy surprised many by pulling driver with a three-shot lead, but he never considered an aggressive line near the water, happily sending a cut off into the trees instead. From there, he punched out to the fairway and left himself another short iron dead into the wind, this time flighting a low draw with an 8-iron to the back tier of the green, 17 feet below the hole to seal the win.
Throughout The Players, McIlroy seemed extremely comfortable relying on the other areas of his game, opting for a more controlled approach off the tee. He often took the big left miss out of play by opting for a left-to-right shot shape off of the tee as opposed to utilizing his traditional power draw. That prevented McIlroy from finding serious trouble, but it put stress on the rest of his game as he finished just 17th in strokes gained off the tee.
Usually, the other parts of his game haven’t always stood up to the test when his driver isn’t proving to be the ultimate weapon, but at The Players, he finished fifth in strokes gained approach and 10th in strokes gained putting.
McIlroy has always dominated off of the tee — remarkably never finishing worse than sixth in strokes gained since 2010, per the PGA Tour — but he’s coupled that improvement with the most complete all-around play we’ve seen from him to this point. He’s second in strokes gained off the tee, 17th in approach, 15th in putting, and 12th in scrambling percentage, which even with the small sample size caveat of four tournaments is wildly impressive.
Flashing a more complete game and the ability to manage varying conditions creates more margin for error and more opportunities to contend at tournaments. McIlroy’s consistency round-to-round has been an issue — especially at Augusta National where slow starts have plagued him — but a more well-rounded game could alleviate that concern.
If McIlroy isn’t beholden to bending a course to his will — if he’s able to scratch out quality scores without his absolute best stuff by relying on other areas of his game — suddenly those rounds of brilliance (when it’s all clicking and the driver is flying a mile down the fairway) become much more dangerous. It also helps negate some of his clutch-time weaknesses, namely putting and approach play, which have bitten him at the worst times in majors, including the final rounds of the 2022 Open Championship and 2024 U.S. Open.
Otherwise, McIlroy would not be going on 11 years without a major championship.
His performances in majors since that last win in 2014 — 21 top 10s, including four runner-up finishes — are a Rorschach test for golf fans. Rory’s consistently put himself in the mix, finishing with at least two major top 10s in eight of the last 10 years; it’s a level of consistency few golfers are able to achieve across a full decade. But he’s stood by and watched his trophy shelf collect dust while most of the other top players in the world — even those of his peers with lower and shorter peaks — have collected major chamionships.
McIlroy himself has oscillated between those two extremes, speaking at different times about struggling with the pressure to win another major — particularly the Masters, completing his career grand slam — while expressing the various ways in which he’s altered his game or preparation to account for prior failures.
That is why his balanced statistical profile this season is so important: McIlroy appears to have developed the necessary self-belief to work past any obstacles that may invade his 72 holes. The only way you can hit that iron shot on No. 17 into a 20+ mph wind is to have full faith in your ability to execute it.
After his final round Sunday, McIlroy was honest (as always) about the creeping doubts that entered his mind as he walked to the tee, explaining that he couldn’t help but look at the wind whipping and imagine putting a ball in the water. However, he turned his focus to the shot he wanted to execute and set any doubt aside to make a fully committed swing, safely finding the back tier.
“I feel like I’m a better player now than I ever have been,” McIlroy said after the win. “And it’s nice to see the fruits of my labor paying off.”
2025 Players Championship purse, prize money: Payout for Rory McIlroy, winner’s share out of $25 million pool
Patrick McDonald
As a young player, self-confidence is easy to come by, especially when you have the junior pedigree McIlroy possessed when becoming a professional. He rode that to an unbelievable start to build his career and capture four major titles, but that confidence has eroded over the last decade, weathered away by close calls and painful misses.
That is why McIlroy’s post-round statement of confidence was as meaningful as anything he did on the course at TPC Sawgrass. Your physical skills in golf are only as impactful as your mental belief in being able to produce them. Right now, Rory seems to have regained that belief.
The biggest question remaining for McIlroy is whether his putter will hold up in a final-round battle. He limped home in the fourth round at Sawgrass, going 1 over across his final six holes on Sunday. That allowed Spaun to erase a 3-shot deficit and force the playoff, which he won Monday with seven putts to go birdie-bogey-bogey as Spaun mashed the eject button on the 17th.
McIlroy’s Pebble Beach performance was more impressive, going 5-under on the back nine to slam the door shut on Shane Lowry; however, with the scars from that Pinehurst finish still fresh, he’ll have to prove on a major stage that the putter will hold up.
Entering Year 16 of his green jacket quest, the hype train entering April is more justified than perhaps ever. McIlroy’s all-around game has never been better, he’s more confident in his abilities than any time in the last decade, and he’s never been this successful entering April with as much concrete proof of concept that he’s able to put together four rounds of major championship-winning golf.
Beyond his own successes, McIlroy’s toughest competition has dragged its feet early in the year as they work back from injuries that kept them off the course. Scheffler is nowhere near as sharp as we’ve come to expect him to be, and Xander Schauffele well off his game that won two majors to close 2024.
All signs point to this being McIlroy’s year. Now all we can do is wait and see whether this more confident and complete version of Rory is enough to conquer his white whale and nab that coveted green jacket.
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