But he did enjoy going back, obviously under far different circumstances than his emotional, draining win that saw him start the final round with a two-shot lead, give it up in two holes, take a four-shot advantage at the turn, lead by three with six to play, make a crushing double bogey at the par-5 13th, then birdies at the 15th and 17th\u00a0before an 18-hole bogey dropped him into a tie with Rose.<\/p>\n
McIlroy finally prevailed with a short birdie putt on the 18th\u00a0on the first sudden-death playoff hole, falling to his knees in relief and joy.<\/p>\n
The December visit was with far less fanfare\u2014or even fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was cool to get up to the champions locker room and see my nameplate alongside the other two champions that I share a locker with,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cIt was somewhat nostalgic. I wouldn\u2019t say it was emotional but definitely there was nice memories. Different feels the first time staying on site without having to need a member there. There\u2019s a lot of perks you get with being a champion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among them is access to the champions locker room, where McIlroy \u201cshares\u201d a locker with previous champions, to be revealed later.<\/p>\n
(Tiger Woods, for example, has his name on a locker with the late Jack Burke Jr., who won the 1956 Masters and was the oldest living Masters champion until his death in 2024.)<\/p>\n
And as McIlroy noted, as a past champion, he does not need to be hosted by a member in order to stay on site or even play practice rounds. Any invited player to the tournament in April is allowed to visit for practice in advance of the tournament.<\/p>\n
![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/01jshkznb7mywzj0gmh5.jpg\" "\\"Rory")
<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy also visited the course in December but did not play. | Erick W. Rasco\/Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n
Last year at the Tour Championship, McIlroy talked about visiting Augusta in the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad wasn\u2019t there when I won, so I think that\u2019ll be a cool moment to be with him,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be emotional. Like I still get a little emotional thinking about it. But it\u2019ll be really cool. To go there, I have a lot of members there that have become good friends over the years, and to be able to enjoy that with them and play the golf course again and sort of reminisce over the good and the bad that happened over the course of the week, yeah, that\u2019ll be really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy has made many visits to Augusta National over the years away from tournament week, trying to find the right formula for preparing for the tournament\u2014with different levels of success.<\/p>\n
His victory came in his 17th\u00a0attempt, the second-longest in Masters history behind Sergio Garcia\u2019s 19 tries before winning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful place to play golf,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cIf you stop to actually look around and look at the plants and look at the trees and hear the birds, it\u2019s a beautiful place to spend your day and to spend your night and go down to the wine cellar and pick a bottle of wine. It\u2019s one of the coolest experiences you can have in golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always said some of my favorite times at Augusta were when it wasn’t the Masters Tournament, but it\u2019ll be lovely to next time go there and go up to the champions locker room and put on my green jacket and feel like I belong.\u201d<\/p>\n
More Golf from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. \u2014 Rory McIlroy is headed to Augusta National next week to play the course for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-479635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}