There are days that remind us why watching sports is so enjoyable. April 13 was one of those days. Lost in the rubble of the college transfer portal, of ballooning ticket prices and taxpayer bailouts of billionaire owners, it can be easy to forget what fires our interest in the first place.
Rory McIlroy and the Masters brought it back into focus. Mixing the most human of athletic ingredients – magic and meltdown – the 35-year-old from Northern Ireland lived out the thrill of victory and agony of (almost) defeat.
And he did it for free. At least for those of us watching at home, or in my case in a golf course pro shop. Fans, er, patrons on the grounds of Augusta National Golf Club had to pay a pretty penny to watch in person – I doubt any are complaining – as history was made. McIlroy joined elite company when he defeated Justin Rose on the first hole of a sudden death playoff to become the sixth player in the history of modern professional golf to complete the grand slam.
McIlroy now owns a green jacket to go with wins at the U.S. Open, PGA Championship and British Open. The other five slammers? Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.
It took McIlroy much longer to achieve the slam than the other golf legends, which made it all the more special. He won his last major championship, the British Open, in 2014 and needed another 11 years of missed cuts and close calls to complete the quest.
But it wasn’t simply that McIlroy finally broke through, but how he did it. Three times on April 13 I sent texts to friends who were oohing and ow’ing every time McIlroy followed a magnificent shot with a miserable mistake.
“That will go down as the biggest shot of his life,” I first thumbed out when McIlroy hit an amazing high draw to eagle range at the par 5 15th hole. The same text went out minutes later when McIlroy implored his golf ball to find the green at the par 4 17th.
Before and between those texts, however, appeared the eye roll emoji and more than a few OMGs, as McIlroy’s incredible shots were tempered by horrific ones. He laid up at the par 5 13th (smart) then shanked his third shot into the creek fronting the green (dumb). He missed the eagle putt at 15, ruining a chance to put his win on ice, missed a makeable 9-foot birdie putt at 16, but then hit another “biggest shot of his life” at 17, where his birdie putt gave him a one-shot lead over Rose heading to the final hole.
All McIlroy had to accomplish at 18 was drive the ball in the fairway – no easy task, considering the pressure – and then flip a wedge onto the green and two-putt for par and a one-stroke victory. He found the fairway, leaving him 127 yards out, then pushed a lazy gap wedge into the right, greenside bunker. From there, he splashed his third shot to within 4 feet but missed the subsequent putt to send him and Rose to sudden death tied at 10 under.
Finally, replaying the 18th as the first playoff hole, McIlroy hit the third “biggest shot of his life” of the round. His wedge shot from 125 yards this time spun to within 4 feet of the cup, and after Rose missed his 11 footer for birdie, McIlroy buried his putt to win.
The emotional back-and-forth was almost too much to bear, and that was as someone watching from 575 miles away. McIlroy’s insides must have resembled a highway collision involving an egg truck and cow carrier. Every physical act of brilliance was followed by a bone-headed hiccup.
And that is what made it so mesmerizing to watch. With so much on the line, McIlroy gave it his best and worst. When his best won out, he dropped to his knees, overcome by emotion. It was as if a lifetime of disappointment disappeared in an instant. You aren’t human if you didn’t feel good for him, and bad for Rose, who gave it his best shot only to come up a few inches short.
Remember this Masters the next time you begin to travel the road of resentment over what sports have become. It was a perfect reminder of why we love to watch.
Now for the flip side … Nico Iamaleava’s exit
If the 89th Masters proved the beauty of sports, the departure of starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava – talk about an appropriate last name – from Tennessee via the transfer portal sends the message that college sports are messed up.
Iamaleava, who started for the Vols last season, including against Ohio State in the playoff game at Ohio Stadium, reportedly was unhappy with the $2 million he reportedly was being paid for name, image and likeness. The former five-star recruit signed an NIL deal in 2022 that was to pay him $8 million by the end of his third year at Tennessee. According to ESPN, the player’s representatives wanted to renegotiate to $4 million per season, using the threat of entering the portal as leverage.
The portal opens April 16, and it will be interesting to watch where Imaleava ends up. Who will pay $4 million for a player who bails on teammates?
Vols coach Josh Heupel had this to say about the situation: “It’s the state of college football. At the end of the day, no one is ever bigger than the program. That includes me, too.”
Good to know, but now is a good time to remind everyone that UT was among the first to use NIL as a recruiting tool, not just as a way to compensate athletes for their brand value. The Vols helped create this monster. And it just bit them back.
Listening in
“I just said, listen, this is a historic moment in golf, isn’t it, someone who achieves the career grand slam. I just said it was pretty cool to be able to share that moment with him. Obviously, I wanted to be the bad guy today, but still, it’s a momentous occasion for the game of golf.” – Masters runner-up Justin Rose, on what he told Rory McIlroy after the match.
Off-topic
As inventions go, I’ve always said the clock has impacted more people than anything in history. Think about it. Time was measured only by day and night until about 1300, during the renaissance period. The light bulb was a pretty big leap forward, too. What’s No. 3? Television has to be up there, along with various medicines that have saved millions of lives, but don’t overlook the computer, and specifically the smartphone. You want to talk behavior change? Smartphones have become an extension of the body, affecting everything from how we spend our time to how we communicate with each other.
Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@dispatch.com and on X.com at@rollerCD.
