AUGUSTA, Ga. — On Tuesday around noon, Rory McIlroy finished up his practice round at Augusta National and climbed the winding staircase in the clubhouse, past the champions locker room to the little veranda just beyond the massive tree. One of the most peaceful and wonderful spots on the entire property.
At a table to his right sat Ben Crenshaw, hosting his first of a few meals at Augusta National that day. At a table to his left sat a contingent of European Ryder Cup wives, including Rory’s wife, Erica.
Rory glad-handed and grinned his way around the deck, a stark contrast from past Masters when he seemed to expect the worst at the dead end to Magnolia Lane. He bounced around like he’s done on so many fairways all over the world, before briefly stopping at our table where we talked for a moment about the amazing every hole video the Masters put out 10 days ago.
He said that video was filmed several months after he won last year’s Masters — later in the summer of 2025 — but that he still couldn’t help himself from getting emotional at the end of it. If you haven’t seen the video, he breaks down toward the end when he talks about how hard it hit him that he was no longer just Rory McIlroy but Rory McIlroy, Masters champion. It’s a touching moment in what had been a year full of them.
He seemed surprised at his emotion.
I told him that we’re all just dads who cry at everything now.
He laughed and said that even watching Bluey with his daughter can upend him.
“The cricket episode,” I said.
“That’s the one.”
A huge thank you to Holderness and Bourne for sponsoring today’s newsletter. In the spirit of all the giveaways we’ve been doing this week, H&B has agreed to give away a box of their merch to one of our members.
No other eligibility is required, only that you’re a Normal Club member, which costs just $82/year and helps fund our trips to places like the Masters. The box of merch our winner will receive from H&B will be filthier than the shot Justin Rose hit on No. 7 on Sunday, but even if you don’t win it, you’ll still enjoy a ton of great benefits from your annual membership.
While you’re waiting to see if you won, might I suggest scouting out some of my favorite gear of theirs, like the Lawson hoodie, the Ventura vest and the Sullivan pullover. I’m sure all three would like nice under the piece of clothing the winner of the first major receives, but we’ll have to wait until next year when Rory is handing it over to Ben Griffin to find out.
OK, now onto the news.
There are many dimensions to Rory McIlroy. A curious depth that he doesn’t always seem to understand. An abiding joy for the game that has given him so much. A soft side. A hard side. A stubbornness. A selfishness. Care for others. An anger that spills over the edge at times [gestures at literally any Ryder Cup]. A grace that always returns.
He is as dynamic as pro golfers get.
What intrigues me as it relates to his second Masters win and sixth major championship, though, is that the player has seemingly grown and matured with the person.
When he was 20 or 22, he possessed an eye-popping giftedness that left (and still leaves) even other pros amazed. He was a thoroughbred. One speed. No brakes. He threw 103, yes, but you didn’t always know where it was going. When he could control it, though, the results seemed to bend the reality of what we thought was possible.
“I used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots,” he said after Sunday’s second straight green jacket.
On Friday at this 90th Masters, that player seemed to return. The artist.
I got a text from a buddy during that crazy six-birdies-in-seven-holes finish that gave him a six-shot lead going into the third round. The text said, We’re watching a masterpiece. We were. It felt as if he’d been unshackled from his grand slam quest and had reinvented his 36-year-old self into his 22-year-old self.
It felt like he was going to go back to back at the Masters with the grand slam one year and a double-digit win the next.
If you haven’t seen the cricket episode of Bluey, the premise is that one of the neighborhood kids — a superstar named Rusty — comes over to play cricket, and none of the dads can get him out. He is so good and so young. There is nothing he cannot do. The dads are absolutely in awe.
There is an underlying tinge of sadness, though, because part of the reason Rusty got so good is that his dad worked to support his family (in this instance, he was deployed) and the gifted boy spent a lot of time alone, working on his game.
But his joy for playing and becoming better along the way were unquenchable. He could not get enough.
It became clear early on Saturday that Rory didn’t have that 103 MPH heat of yesteryear. It’s still there at times, but as we know, the loss of innocence takes a few MPH off the fastball, and it gets more difficult to win by eight when you actually understand what’s happening.
He took a 73 right in the face in Round 3 and kicked away a six-shot lead in half the time it took him to build it. Sunday didn’t start much better. He played the first six holes in 2 over and looked as if he would be handing off the jacket to Justin Rose.
Then he ripped off birdies at No. 7 and No. 8 before ostensibly sealing the deal at No. 12 and No. 13 with two more. But of course it wasn’t quite over. He hit the skinniest, clankiest approach on No. 15 that I’ve maybe ever heard at this golf course, but somehow went par-par-par-par at 14-17 and took a two-shot lead to the last.
To the surprise of nobody, he would need both of those shots after blowing his drive so far right on Holly that it could have run for governor of Oklahoma.
After a five at the last and his second straight win here, Rory has now led or co-led for six consecutive Masters round. His closest competition in the end was Scottie Scheffler, who lost by one but trailed by 12 two days ago.
With the win, Rory …
• Reaches six major championships (only 11 golfers have more).
• Ties Nick Faldo for most majors by a European ever.
• Becomes the fourth player to win back to back Masters (Tiger, Jack, Faldo).
• Becomes (probably) one of the 10 best players of all time (we will get to this!).
After all of it was over — after he screamed at the sky following the final putt and cried when talking about his parents and wrapped his daughter up with those hands that saved a thousand pars this week — Rory gave himself some grades.
“I would say I felt like I didn't drive the ball great,” said McIlroy. “I drove it better today. I would say I'd give it like a B-minus. I'd say for three days my irons were really good, Thursday, Friday, and today I felt like I hit some better iron shots. Yesterday was really poor. So I'd say I'd give that a B. Then my scrambling and my short game and my putting, that's what won me the tournament this week.”
He’s probably being generous with those first two grades, too. He finished 52nd in driving accuracy and 22nd in strokes gained on approach. It wasn’t amazing on Thursday or Friday, but it was downright difficult to watch at times on Saturday and Sunday.
Last year, he had the goods, and he (and everyone else) knew it, which is why losing the slam after the first 63 holes that he played in 2025 would have been devastating.
This year? He didn’t have his best stuff, and he still got it done. Last year’s victory was far more historic, but this one may have been somehow actually more impressive.
At the end of the cricket episode of Bluey, we see that Rusty’s father has written him a letter while on his deployment. Rusty had been working on his game and had been facing someone called Tiny who he couldn’t get a hit off of.
Tiny threw gas, and our young protagonist was fearful of staying in the box.
“As you grow up, you’ll face harder things than a cricket ball,” his father wrote. “And you’ll have two choices. Back away and get out. Or step in front and play [the] shot.”
We should not expect this Rory to win like the old Rory did because this Rory is not the same person or the same player. That Rory would have ejected so hard so many different times this weekend. This Rory hung around, stayed engaged, fixed what was broken on Saturday evening, got up and down from some truly outrageous places and asserted himself on the tournament when he had to have it.
He still looked a little fearful of what was unfolding because that’s just always who he’s going to be. But he didn’t back away and get out. He stepped in front and played the shot.
I thought it was so difficult to win last year because of trying to win the Masters and the grand slam, and then this year I realized it's just really difficult to win the Masters. I tried to convince myself it was both.
Rory McIlroy
Rory won the 2026 Masters without anything close to his best stuff. That one of the preeminent talents in golf history is evolving into someone who can win like this is almost astonishing.
Maturation is difficult. It hurts. To mature is to admit that we didn’t have it all right and to change what needs changing. It is the right path — the best path — but unquestionably the more difficult one, too.
Most golfers don’t stay good enough for long enough for their golf maturation to matter. Once they mature — if it even happens at all — they no longer swing it like they once did so the mental and emotional evolution is nice but doesn’t amount to much.
The craziest part about Rory’s extraordinary career is that he went basically from age 25-35 without winning a single major and he’s still going to end up with seven (or eight? or nine?!) of them. That is impossible, but he is doing it. His longevity has allowed his mental and emotional game to catch up, and now he can win any way you need him to.
That’s scary.
At another point in that cricket episode, one of the other kids (I realize they’re dogs, but they are kids to me) wants to play something else other than cricket.
“Cricket’s just hitting a ball around in the grass,” Bluey says to her dad, Bandit. “Cricket’s about more than that, kid,” her dad replies.
At the end of the episode, when the dads still can’t get Rusty out in their pick-up game, he finally has mercy on them and takes a dive by purposefully popping out to his sister just to make her feel good.
Bandit reiterates the mantra, “Cricket’s about more than that, kid.”
The episode ends with Rusty becoming a professional and entering an arena bigger and brighter and beyond what he ever could have imagined.
The boy who loved playing with a ball in the grass grew into someone who does it in front of thousands of people all over the world.
I was moved exactly twice on Sunday evening at Augusta National. The first time was when Rory talked about how much his parents meant and how he wants to be half the parent to his daughter that they were to him. Whew.
The second was a bit of a throwaway line in his presser about whether he was looking at leaderboards. He said he was and that sometimes he looks at them to see where other players are at.
I was out there today looking at Shane's score because I was interested to see, if I didn't win today, I wish I would have been putting the green jacket on him.
Rory McIlroy
Wait … what?! What?!
Rory is someone who constantly intrigues and surprises me. How he reacts and responds to things. How he views the world. It is unusual, and this is yet another example. The evolution of the person and the player have not always been in sync, but they seem to be currently dancing a dance that is perfectly in rhythm.
Rory will likely never win majors by 8+ shots again. But now he’ll win majors by one or two that he shouldn’t have won at all.
Maturation means discarding what we once were for who we want to become. The young person who once cared about nothing except himself discarded for the man who now cries at Bluey episodes.
The talented young person who had no idea how to collect himself emotionally or mentally when things started going sideways, now discarded for the talented man who is also a dog and won’t let you wrestle away his major championship.
To pine for who we once were is to deny the reality of who we have become. And even more than that, to try to be who we used to be is to refuse to accept the good gifts that come with getting older.
These gifts come in all forms.
Back to back titles in front of your parents at the “shining light” (his words) of major championship golf. Crying on a Tuesday morning with your 5 year old because the cricket episode of Bluey is so wonderful and pure.
Or maybe (maybe!) you’re crying because you realize that it was actually a story about you. One you still cannot believe actually came true.
Thank you for reading our outrageous golf newsletter that is sometimes (but often barely) about golf. Every edition is handcrafted by me (Kyle) and Jason. It is a labor of love, but as long as you keep showing up and we still have money in our bank account, we will keep handcrafting and delivering this thing to you with all the obsession we can muster.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — On Tuesday around noon, Rory McIlroy finished up his practice round at Augusta National and climbed the winding staircase in the clubhouse, past the champions locker room to the little veranda just beyond the massive tree. One of the most peaceful and wonderful spots on the entire property.
At a table to his right sat Ben Crenshaw, hosting his first of a few meals at Augusta National that day. At a table to his left sat a contingent of European Ryder Cup wives, including Rory’s wife, Erica.
Rory glad-handed and grinned his way around the deck, a stark contrast from past Masters when he seemed to expect the worst at the dead end to Magnolia Lane. He bounced around like he’s done on so many fairways all over the world, before briefly stopping at our table where we talked for a moment about the amazing every hole video the Masters put out 10 days ago.
He said that video was filmed several months after he won last year’s Masters — later in the summer of 2025 — but that he still couldn’t help himself from getting emotional at the end of it. If you haven’t seen the video, he breaks down toward the end when he talks about how hard it hit him that he was no longer just Rory McIlroy but Rory McIlroy, Masters champion. It’s a touching moment in what had been a year full of them.
He seemed surprised at his emotion.
I told him that we’re all just dads who cry at everything now.
He laughed and said that even watching Bluey with his daughter can upend him.
“The cricket episode,” I said.
“That’s the one.”
A huge thank you to Holderness and Bourne for sponsoring today’s newsletter. In the spirit of all the giveaways we’ve been doing this week, H&B has agreed to give away a box of their merch to one of our members.
No other eligibility is required, only that you’re a Normal Club member, which costs just $82/year and helps fund our trips to places like the Masters. The box of merch our winner will receive from H&B will be filthier than the shot Justin Rose hit on No. 7 on Sunday, but even if you don’t win it, you’ll still enjoy a ton of great benefits from your annual membership.
While you’re waiting to see if you won, might I suggest scouting out some of my favorite gear of theirs, like the Lawson hoodie, the Ventura vest and the Sullivan pullover. I’m sure all three would like nice under the piece of clothing the winner of the first major receives, but we’ll have to wait until next year when Rory is handing it over to Ben Griffin to find out.
OK, now onto the news.
There are many dimensions to Rory McIlroy. A curious depth that he doesn’t always seem to understand. An abiding joy for the game that has given him so much. A soft side. A hard side. A stubbornness. A selfishness. Care for others. An anger that spills over the edge at times [gestures at literally any Ryder Cup]. A grace that always returns.
He is as dynamic as pro golfers get.
What intrigues me as it relates to his second Masters win and sixth major championship, though, is that the player has seemingly grown and matured with the person.
When he was 20 or 22, he possessed an eye-popping giftedness that left (and still leaves) even other pros amazed. He was a thoroughbred. One speed. No brakes. He threw 103, yes, but you didn’t always know where it was going. When he could control it, though, the results seemed to bend the reality of what we thought was possible.
“I used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots,” he said after Sunday’s second straight green jacket.
On Friday at this 90th Masters, that player seemed to return. The artist.
I got a text from a buddy during that crazy six-birdies-in-seven-holes finish that gave him a six-shot lead going into the third round. The text said, We’re watching a masterpiece. We were. It felt as if he’d been unshackled from his grand slam quest and had reinvented his 36-year-old self into his 22-year-old self.
It felt like he was going to go back to back at the Masters with the grand slam one year and a double-digit win the next.
If you haven’t seen the cricket episode of Bluey, the premise is that one of the neighborhood kids — a superstar named Rusty — comes over to play cricket, and none of the dads can get him out. He is so good and so young. There is nothing he cannot do. The dads are absolutely in awe.
There is an underlying tinge of sadness, though, because part of the reason Rusty got so good is that his dad worked to support his family (in this instance, he was deployed) and the gifted boy spent a lot of time alone, working on his game.
But his joy for playing and becoming better along the way were unquenchable. He could not get enough.
It became clear early on Saturday that Rory didn’t have that 103 MPH heat of yesteryear. It’s still there at times, but as we know, the loss of innocence takes a few MPH off the fastball, and it gets more difficult to win by eight when you actually understand what’s happening.
He took a 73 right in the face in Round 3 and kicked away a six-shot lead in half the time it took him to build it. Sunday didn’t start much better. He played the first six holes in 2 over and looked as if he would be handing off the jacket to Justin Rose.
Then he ripped off birdies at No. 7 and No. 8 before ostensibly sealing the deal at No. 12 and No. 13 with two more. But of course it wasn’t quite over. He hit the skinniest, clankiest approach on No. 15 that I’ve maybe ever heard at this golf course, but somehow went par-par-par-par at 14-17 and took a two-shot lead to the last.
To the surprise of nobody, he would need both of those shots after blowing his drive so far right on Holly that it could have run for governor of Oklahoma.
After a five at the last and his second straight win here, Rory has now led or co-led for six consecutive Masters round. His closest competition in the end was Scottie Scheffler, who lost by one but trailed by 12 two days ago.
With the win, Rory …
• Reaches six major championships (only 11 golfers have more).
• Ties Nick Faldo for most majors by a European ever.
• Becomes the fourth player to win back to back Masters (Tiger, Jack, Faldo).
• Becomes (probably) one of the 10 best players of all time (we will get to this!).
After all of it was over — after he screamed at the sky following the final putt and cried when talking about his parents and wrapped his daughter up with those hands that saved a thousand pars this week — Rory gave himself some grades.
“I would say I felt like I didn't drive the ball great,” said McIlroy. “I drove it better today. I would say I'd give it like a B-minus. I'd say for three days my irons were really good, Thursday, Friday, and today I felt like I hit some better iron shots. Yesterday was really poor. So I'd say I'd give that a B. Then my scrambling and my short game and my putting, that's what won me the tournament this week.”
He’s probably being generous with those first two grades, too. He finished 52nd in driving accuracy and 22nd in strokes gained on approach. It wasn’t amazing on Thursday or Friday, but it was downright difficult to watch at times on Saturday and Sunday.
Last year, he had the goods, and he (and everyone else) knew it, which is why losing the slam after the first 63 holes that he played in 2025 would have been devastating.
This year? He didn’t have his best stuff, and he still got it done. Last year’s victory was far more historic, but this one may have been somehow actually more impressive.
At the end of the cricket episode of Bluey, we see that Rusty’s father has written him a letter while on his deployment. Rusty had been working on his game and had been facing someone called Tiny who he couldn’t get a hit off of.
Tiny threw gas, and our young protagonist was fearful of staying in the box.
“As you grow up, you’ll face harder things than a cricket ball,” his father wrote. “And you’ll have two choices. Back away and get out. Or step in front and play [the] shot.”
We should not expect this Rory to win like the old Rory did because this Rory is not the same person or the same player. That Rory would have ejected so hard so many different times this weekend. This Rory hung around, stayed engaged, fixed what was broken on Saturday evening, got up and down from some truly outrageous places and asserted himself on the tournament when he had to have it.
He still looked a little fearful of what was unfolding because that’s just always who he’s going to be. But he didn’t back away and get out. He stepped in front and played the shot.
I thought it was so difficult to win last year because of trying to win the Masters and the grand slam, and then this year I realized it's just really difficult to win the Masters. I tried to convince myself it was both.
Rory McIlroy
Rory won the 2026 Masters without anything close to his best stuff. That one of the preeminent talents in golf history is evolving into someone who can win like this is almost astonishing.
Maturation is difficult. It hurts. To mature is to admit that we didn’t have it all right and to change what needs changing. It is the right path — the best path — but unquestionably the more difficult one, too.
Most golfers don’t stay good enough for long enough for their golf maturation to matter. Once they mature — if it even happens at all — they no longer swing it like they once did so the mental and emotional evolution is nice but doesn’t amount to much.
The craziest part about Rory’s extraordinary career is that he went basically from age 25-35 without winning a single major and he’s still going to end up with seven (or eight? or nine?!) of them. That is impossible, but he is doing it. His longevity has allowed his mental and emotional game to catch up, and now he can win any way you need him to.
That’s scary.
At another point in that cricket episode, one of the other kids (I realize they’re dogs, but they are kids to me) wants to play something else other than cricket.
“Cricket’s just hitting a ball around in the grass,” Bluey says to her dad, Bandit. “Cricket’s about more than that, kid,” her dad replies.
At the end of the episode, when the dads still can’t get Rusty out in their pick-up game, he finally has mercy on them and takes a dive by purposefully popping out to his sister just to make her feel good.
Bandit reiterates the mantra, “Cricket’s about more than that, kid.”
The episode ends with Rusty becoming a professional and entering an arena bigger and brighter and beyond what he ever could have imagined.
The boy who loved playing with a ball in the grass grew into someone who does it in front of thousands of people all over the world.
I was moved exactly twice on Sunday evening at Augusta National. The first time was when Rory talked about how much his parents meant and how he wants to be half the parent to his daughter that they were to him. Whew.
The second was a bit of a throwaway line in his presser about whether he was looking at leaderboards. He said he was and that sometimes he looks at them to see where other players are at.
I was out there today looking at Shane's score because I was interested to see, if I didn't win today, I wish I would have been putting the green jacket on him.
Rory McIlroy
Wait … what?! What?!
Rory is someone who constantly intrigues and surprises me. How he reacts and responds to things. How he views the world. It is unusual, and this is yet another example. The evolution of the person and the player have not always been in sync, but they seem to be currently dancing a dance that is perfectly in rhythm.
Rory will likely never win majors by 8+ shots again. But now he’ll win majors by one or two that he shouldn’t have won at all.
Maturation means discarding what we once were for who we want to become. The young person who once cared about nothing except himself discarded for the man who now cries at Bluey episodes.
The talented young person who had no idea how to collect himself emotionally or mentally when things started going sideways, now discarded for the talented man who is also a dog and won’t let you wrestle away his major championship.
To pine for who we once were is to deny the reality of who we have become. And even more than that, to try to be who we used to be is to refuse to accept the good gifts that come with getting older.
These gifts come in all forms.
Back to back titles in front of your parents at the “shining light” (his words) of major championship golf. Crying on a Tuesday morning with your 5 year old because the cricket episode of Bluey is so wonderful and pure.
Or maybe (maybe!) you’re crying because you realize that it was actually a story about you. One you still cannot believe actually came true.
Thank you for reading our outrageous golf newsletter that is sometimes (but often barely) about golf. Every edition is handcrafted by me (Kyle) and Jason. It is a labor of love, but as long as you keep showing up and we still have money in our bank account, we will keep handcrafting and delivering this thing to you with all the obsession we can muster.
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