prevailed at Augusta National<\/a> by a shot over Scottie Scheffler, meaning the Northern Irishman becomes just the fourth golfer to win the tournament back-to-back. While McIlroy will cherish his win, he has no plans to rest on his laurels.<\/p>\n\u201cI just won my sixth major and I feel like I\u2019m in a really good spot with my game and my body,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to put a number on it, I don\u2019t want to say a stop on the journey, but it\u2019s just a part of the journey. I still have things I want to achieve but I still want to enjoy it as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve waited so long to win the Masters and all of a sudden I win two in a row. So I still want to enjoy it. I\u2019ve got a couple of weeks off before I go back to playing competitive golf but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll go through that lull of motivation or the sort of things that I was feeling last year post winning this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
While 2025 at Augusta delivered the career grand slam, there was emotion for McIlroy at the conclusion of the 2026 version. The golfer\u2019s parents, Rosie and Gerry, were not at the Masters a year ago but were on hand to see their son retain the Green Jacket.<\/p>\n
\u201cI caught myself on the golf course a couple of times thinking about them,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI was like: \u2018No, not yet, not yet.\u2019 It\u2019s really cool to have them here.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy celebrates with his wife, Erica, their daughter, Poppy, and his mother, Rosie, and father, Gerry. Photograph: Brian Snyder\/Reuters<\/p>\n
\u201cThey missed it last year and the first thing I wanted to do was fly home to see them because I obviously wouldn\u2019t be sitting up here if it wasn\u2019t for them. I had to sort of convince them to come this year because they thought the reason I won last year was because they weren\u2019t here. I\u2019m glad we proved that wrong, so they can keep coming as long as they want. It\u2019s amazing to have them here. I\u2019m excited to celebrate with them tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comparing his own state of mind between Masters wins, McIlroy said: \u201cNot as emotional, but just, wow, it\u2019s amazing. I can\u2019t believe I did it again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lose a lot more in golf than we win. So I think when the winning comes around, you have to celebrate it to the fullest. I\u2019ll have a good time tonight, and I\u2019ll probably have a sore head flying back to Florida tomorrow morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy\u2019s win arrived in typically dramatic circumstances. He found just 55% of Masters fairways over four rounds and hit only 48 of 72 greens in regulation. The six-shot lead McIlroy held after 36 holes had gone after 54. From the final tee on Sunday, where he was two ahead, McIlroy hit a wayward drive right and into trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t make it easy,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was so difficult to win last year because of trying to win the Masters and the grand slam. This year I realised it\u2019s just really difficult to win the Masters. I had tried to convince myself it was both.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking off the 18th tee not knowing where my ball was, I think that was the moment of greatest stress. It could go anywhere. It could be anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy has warned the rest of elite golf he will set further, lofty goals in his sport…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-528323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528323","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=528323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}