{"id":603941,"date":"2026-04-13T11:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603941\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:05:08","slug":"sir-nick-faldo-luke-donald-lead-mcilroy-praise-after-defending-masters-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603941\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Nick Faldo, Luke Donald lead McIlroy praise after defending Masters crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Nick Faldo<\/a> and Luke Donald<\/a> heaped praise on Rory McIlroy<\/a> after the Northern Irishman defended his Masters title at Augusta National.<\/p>\n

McIlroy faltered on the front nine and with everything clicking for Justin Rose<\/a> it looked as though there was to be a reverse of last year’s outcome.<\/p>\n

But, as is often the case on Masters Sunday, it was on Amen Corner where the green jacket was decided, with McIlroy getting birdies and Rose bogies on 12 and 13.<\/p>\n

That gave McIlroy a three-shot lead with five holes to play and a late rally from Scottie Scheffler<\/a> was not enough to catch McIlroy even with a bogey on the last.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy won his second Masters title at Augusta National.\u00a0Hector Vivas\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

It further cements his place among the all-time greats, as he joins only Jack Nicklaus<\/a>, Faldo and Tiger Woods<\/a> in defending his Masters crown.<\/p>\n

Faldo, a three-time winner at Augusta, was one of the first to appreciate McIlroy’s greatness and set him a new goal of becoming a two-time grand slam champion.<\/p>\n

He said: “All credit to him, incredible, he’s got another major to his name.<\/p>\n

“All he needs now is to win another US Open and another Open Championship and then he’ll be a two-time grand slam champion.<\/p>\n

“That’s his goal. To get there along with the likes of Jack [Nicklaus] and Tiger [Woods].<\/p>\n

– ‘I don’t make it easy’: How Rory McIlroy won back-to-back Masters<\/a>
– Rory McIlroy joins elite list of back-to-back Masters champions<\/a>
– 2026 Masters: Best moments as Rory McIlroy wins second consecutive tournament<\/a><\/p>\n

“He’s unique, Rory is the only one out of those guys to go 11 years between wins, and then he’s added another one.”<\/p>\n

With his sixth major, McIlroy levelled up with Faldo and overtook the great Seve Ballesteros<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He still sits one behind Harry Vardon, who won seven titles between 1896 and 1914.<\/p>\n

Luke Donald, who captained the Ryder Cup team which McIlroy starred in last September believes McIlroy has already become the greatest European golfer of all time, while Paul McGinley<\/a>, a close friend of the Northern Irishman, believes he will want to catch Vardon.<\/p>\n

For the second year in a row, McIlroy donned the Green Jacket at Augusta.\u00a0Andrew Redington\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Donald took to X to say: “Tying Seve with 2 green jackets will mean a lot to Rory. He is undoubtedly the best European golfer of all time now. Congratulations.”<\/p>\n

McGinley told Sky Sports: “McIlroy wants to be known as the best European of all time.<\/p>\n

“As much as many of us might think that already, he still didn’t have as many major championships as Nick Faldo, nor Harry Vardon.<\/p>\n

“Even though he’s caught Nick now with six, he’s still got Harry Vardon [seven] to catch. “There’s always another level, and I think Rory has reset his goals in that regard.”<\/p>\n

Information from PA contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Nick Faldo and Luke Donald heaped praise on Rory McIlroy after the Northern Irishman defended his Masters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603941","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\/603941","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=603941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}