The victory ended a 10-year major drought<\/a> and lifted the weight of expectation that had followed him each April.<\/p>\nAfter starting with a double bogey then recovering with four birdies in the next nine holes, McIlroy battled England\u2019s Justin Rose down the stretch and made bogey at 18 to force a playoff.<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler puts the green Jacket on winner, Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland. AP Photo\/Ashley LandisSource: AP<\/p>\n
Back at 18, McIlroy dropped a wedge shot three feet from the hole and sank the birdie putt for an emotional triumph that brought a green jacket and a night of joyful celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a wonderful night,\u201d said McIlroy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt carried on for a couple days.\u201d<\/p>\n
That next morning, McIlroy awoke feeling \u201ca little foggy,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I woke up and I just had to make sure that it wasn\u2019t a dream. People talk about those pinch-me moments and it really was like, did that really happen?\u201d<\/p>\n
It did. The proof was the green jacket in his luggage when he packed and flew home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so much fun to get home and have dinner at home and wear this jacket and just put the coverage on, watch the highlights,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the best. You have that immense, like, satisfaction and you reflect on the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spieth suffers HORROR meltdown in 2016 | 02:02<\/p>\n
Golf fans that had watched McIlroy grow up celebrated right along with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reception I got after I won, and just how happy everyone was for me,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in some way felt invested in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing this for myself. I\u2019ve had these goals since I was a little boy but the fact other people are invested in that journey of mine obviously makes me incredibly grateful, just makes me take a step back and appreciate everything that I\u2019ve done in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy said aggressive play has been crucial at Augusta, right down to his winning putt after a par miss on the same hole minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only difference with the three-footer in the playoff rather than the five-footer in regulation is I was sure of the line in the playoff. I was a little bit indecisive with my line or my read in regulation,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I look back at the round, when I was aggressive and when I played aggressively, I was rewarded and I played well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s probably a lesson in there somewhere of not taking your foot off the gas.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy has released a documentary on his long wait to win the Masters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a moment in time. It\u2019s a snapshot,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about my entire life. It\u2019s just about my journey to try to complete the slam. I think it would have been a miss to not document it in some way, and we felt like this was the best approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy had seven top-10 finishes at the Masters before finally winning. In the 10-year gap between major wins he had 21 top-10 finishes, four of them runner-up efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy still remembers the surge of emotion that followed his victory at last year\u2019s Masters, a moment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-588133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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