Eran Friedman

Rory McIlroy explains how 14 years of failure flooded his brain after one disastrous shot at the 2025 Masters, and the mental reset that kept the tournament from slipping away: “It felt like it was then or never. If I didn’t go on to win, it would have been one more bad memory and more scar tissue building up.” “My best chance was 14 years ago in 2011. I’ve been close since. I’ve finished second. I’ve played in final groups. I’ve just never been able to quite figure it out.” “I put it out there that this is what I want. This is what I want to achieve.” “That puts more pressure on you from the outside.” “I was in the lead on the 13th hole and I got ahead of it and made a bad swing. My dad said to me afterward, ‘You had all of Georgia on your left, and you hit it right.’” “I hit a similar wedge shot at the US Open in 2023 that lost me the US Open.” "All those bad memories start to enter your brain, it can paralyze you." “I was like, ‘I’ve done it again. You idiot. I’ve done it again.’ It can really mess with your head.” “I felt awful, I made a seven, but I looked up at the big leaderboard. I still had the lead.” “I was like, ‘Okay, you still have the lead. You’ve got five more holes to go. You’ve got another par five. Everything’s okay.’” Two holes later, McIlroy faced a similar shot over the water: “All I needed to do was focus on hitting it and making sure I struck it well enough to get over the water.” "I just reminded myself I had hit a perfect one the day prior, and all those great shots I had hit in the past, just leaned on those memories." “It came out perfect. That was the shot that turned it around. That got some momentum again.” “No matter what I do going forward, that’ll go down as the greatest shot of my career.”