{"id":511388,"date":"2026-04-03T21:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511388\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T21:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:04:10","slug":"the-greatest-shot-in-masters-history-mcilroy-woods-mize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/511388\/","title":{"rendered":"The greatest shot in Masters history: McIlroy, Woods \u2026 Mize?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the new Amazon Prime documentary Rory McIlroy: The Masters Wait, the tension builds steadily for an hour up to the bit you are kind of waiting for. That\u2019s in the final round of last year\u2019s Masters when McIlroy has just lost the lead and he steps on to the 15th. That\u2019s when he plays that shot.<\/p>\n

That shot is McIlroy\u2019s second to the green. When he strikes it, in the documentary, the immediate reaction is from Jim Nantz, the CBS doyen, who purrs: \u201cShot of a lifetime.\u201d The documentary then moves to an interview with Jack Nicklaus, who describes it as \u201cone of the most fantastic shots I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d, and we then go to a reflective interview with McIlroy himself, who says: \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever hit a better golf shot under that amount of pressure in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which makes you wonder: was that the greatest shot ever played at Augusta?<\/p>\n

A key gauge for an answer here is another comment from Nicklaus: \u201cI don\u2019t think many people would have tried it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheSuch was the daring of McIlroy\u2019s shot that Nicklaus believes few others would even have attempted itStuart Franklin\/R&A\/R&A via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Indeed, the sheer audacity of the shot is as astonishing as its technical execution. Rewind back into the excruciating tension in the late afternoon of that final Masters round and you find, at that point, McIlroy\u2019s life seemingly unravelling. In the space of two holes, he had just sabotaged the four-shot lead that he had taken up the 13th fairway and he was now a shot behind Justin Rose.<\/p>\n

That sense of \u201cwheels coming off\u201d was exacerbated by his drive on 15, which drew slightly left, meaning there were three pines blocking a shot into the green. Yet no assessment of his position on that fairway can be made in isolation of where he was in his career: this was his 17th attempt at the Masters, it was the only major that still eluded him, he had spent a decade returning here trying to become the sixth player to complete the grand slam.<\/p>\n

McIlroy took out an eight-iron and switched to a seven. There were 208 yards to the pin. When he stood over the ball, the general expectation was that he would punch it out and lay up short of the water that defends the green. On commentary, the best option suggested was that he draw it round the trees into the right-side bunker.<\/p>\n

Loud gasps then followed his swing, which announced that he was doing none of the above \u2014 instead he had opted for what no one had even considered: he was going for the green. That meant setting it out 30 yards right and playing a controlled draw back in. \u201cI knew it as soon as I\u2019d hit it,\u201d McIlroy said. The ball pitched on the edge of the green and rolled on to six feet.<\/p>\n

Shot of a lifetime.<\/p>\n

Best shot ever at Augusta? Not literally, at least not literally even McIlroy\u2019s best. A month ago he was asked about it and said that he\u2019d just returned from Augusta where he\u2019d played a practice round with his father. When he got to the 15th, for fun, he recreated the same shot and hit it even better.<\/p>\n

Just for background, he hit that with a different seven-iron. The actual club now hangs on display in the Champions Locker Room.<\/p>\n

Also, in his post-victory press conference at Augusta last year, he was asked which was his best shot of the round and his answer was his 24-yard pitch at the 3rd.<\/p>\n

As an assessor of technique, it\u2019s probably reasonable to allow McIlroy<\/a> to be his own judge here. And that shot also came at a crucial time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TheWatson\u2019s remarkable shot on the 10th in the 2012 play-off helped to secure the American the first of two Masters titlesStreeter Lecka\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Yet I\u2019d say that any contender for \u201cbest shot ever\u201d has to be in the back nine of the final round and the later they come and the greater the pressure, the better they are. The last hole in one at Augusta was 2022, Stewart Cink at the 16th in the second round, but it was already inevitable that he was missing the cut, so that\u2019s just a fun shot, it\u2019s not do or die.<\/p>\n

I asked some experts: technically, how hard was McIlroy\u2019s second at 15?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s probably half a dozen players in the world that have got that shot,\u201d said Pete Cowen, who has coached many of the greats in the game, including McIlroy himself.<\/p>\n

Ken Brown, one of the great TV analysts, put it a different way. He said that if you gave other top pros 200 balls to hit that shot, only some would get it on the green. McIlroy was one from one.<\/p>\n

What separates him, they explained, is his ball speed and thus the height he can give the ball, thus limiting the roll. A draw shot is normally lower and one that has to move 30 yards would be spinning hard, so they would run on. On the 15th, that\u2019s a disaster.<\/p>\n

Mike Walker, another coach, best known for his work with Matt Fitzpatrick, had another view of this. He recalled the driveable par-four 5th at the 2023 Ryder Cup and the Friday fourballs when he watched Fitzpatrick, Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele all go through the green before McIlroy landed one in, seemingly from orbit, and stopped it three feet from the pin.<\/p>\n

He says: \u201cI remember thinking at the time, \u2018There\u2019s probably a handful of players on the planet, if that, that could have hit that shot.\u2019 That\u2019s the first thing that cropped into my head when I saw it [his second on 15].\u201d<\/p>\n

The danger in the shot contributes to its greatness too. The 15th is a narrow green with water front and water back, so this was high tariff, the margin for error minuscule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"RoryMcIlroy says he recreated the shot at the 15th earlier this year \u2014 and hit it even betterAndrew Redington\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get it wrong,\u201d Brown says, \u201cyou ain\u2019t going to win the Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d already screwed up on the previous par-five,\u201d says Paul McGinley, former Ryder Cup captain and now a leading broadcaster. \u201cYou make a mistake like that, your head is reeling. You\u2019ve got the grand slam in your hand. It was the bravery of it that makes it so great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greatest shot ever at Augusta? Well, there\u2019s quite a pantheon, isn\u2019t there?<\/p>\n

Most comparable is Bubba Watson\u2019s decisive shot on the 10th in the 2012 play-off: also behind trees, hooking it further (40 yards) but from closer (155 yards) so with a more lofted club.<\/p>\n

A year after it Links Magazine asked the same question \u2014 best shot ever at Augusta? \u2014 and scored the contenders by three categories: difficulty, derring-do and decisiveness. In that respect, McIlroy beats Watson on derring-do: McIlroy didn\u2019t have to take on the shot, Watson was forced into it. On decisiveness Watson wins, because that single shot killed off the play-off. On difficulty McIlroy\u2019s was longer, with a less lofted club, but Watson\u2019s moved a lot further, so maybe that\u2019s a draw.<\/p>\n

On decisiveness nothing beats Larry Mize in 1987, whose bump-and-run from 140 feet finished the play-off stone dead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The other contenders are numerous: Sandy Lyle\u2019s seven-iron from the fairway bunker which set up his victory in 1988; Jack Nicklaus in 1975, a one-iron on 15, 246 yards to ten feet; Nick Faldo in 1996, his foot on Greg Norman\u2019s throat, killed him off with his second to the green on 13. Somehow that didn\u2019t make the Links top ten for derring-do. \u201cThe ball was six inches above his feet,\u201d Brown says. \u201cAnybody who\u2019s tried to play that shot knows there\u2019s no margin of error.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of these, however, quite replicate the emotion and the drama of McIlroy last year: the long, elusive grand slam, the spectre of another opportunity being self-detonated. If there was a category for \u201ccareer on the line\u201d, no one beats McIlroy.<\/p>\n

Similar here is Gene Sarazen, also on the 15th, in 1935, holing a four-wood from 230 yards for an albatross. Like McIlroy, that was the Masters that completed his grand slam, yet that was only the second year of the Masters<\/a> so it wasn\u2019t as if the grand slam had been his holy grail. Was the grand slam even a thing back then?<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT000001078656\"Faldo\u2019s second shot on 13 was key to his path to the Green Jacket in 1996Jeff HAYNES\/AFP<\/p>\n

Links Magazine\u2019s formula made Sarazen\u2019s the greatest shot in Masters history. It ranked top for both derring-do and difficulty.<\/p>\n

But back to the experts. Cowen goes for Tiger Woods\u2019s chip in on 16 in 2005. \u201cProbably half a dozen players could hit the one that Rory hit,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not under that sort of pressure, so maybe two or three. But with Woods, I would say probably only Woods could hit that shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brown goes back to his 200-ball assessment. \u201cFrom where Tiger was,\u201d he says, \u201ceven a top pro, you could give them 200 balls and they might not chip one in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, this is clearly a subjective thing, but for greatest shots, it probably needs to go in. After the glory of his second shot on 15, McIlroy didn\u2019t even sink the following eagle putt.<\/p>\n

Here, then, are the top five shots in Augusta history:<\/p>\n

Tiger Woods chip on 16, 2005<\/p>\n

Gene Sarazen\u2019s second on 15, 1935<\/p>\n

Larry Mize to win in 1987<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy\u2019s \u201cshot of a lifetime\u201d, 2025<\/p>\n

Bubba Watson\u2019s \u201chook from the woods\u201d, 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the new Amazon Prime documentary Rory McIlroy: The Masters Wait, the tension builds steadily for an hour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-511388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}