My eye-witness account of Rory McIlroy winning the grand slam at Augusta National

I was standing with a blend of Australians and Americans below the looming oak short and right of Augusta’s 18^th green.

“Don’t push me off,” said one young local who stood on a Masters fold-up chair to get the best view of the green.

“I’m not a d***,” said his friend, outraged by this suggestion. We all wanted to see one thing, but barely could with the immense swell of patrons around the 18^th hole. The Aussie, clearly an Aussie with his moustache and long curls, also stood on a chair but was told to get down by a security guard blended into the crowd like a chameleon.

Before arriving here, about 70 yards short of the iconic putting surface, I had scurried around for a while trying to see the yellow pin on 18. After following this soap opera of a major championship hole by hole on its second nine and arriving late to the final scene, all I needed to see was the pin.

With my media privileges, I thought, “I’ll try the clubhouse balcony.” I passed the exclusive ropes, but slowed down to allow defending champion Scottie Scheffler to enter the premises. I followed him up the stairs and he went in a room to the left on the top floor, where I imagine he got ready to hand the Green Jacket over in the winner’s ceremony later.

I went out to the balcony, where another oak was blocking my view. I vacated, taking one last look through the front door at Magnolia Lane for the week, and landed on my aforementioned spot with the Aussies.

I couldn’t see any balls in the fairway, but the cheers of the patrons on the other side told me Rory McIlroy was in the middle on the 72^nd hole, needing just a par to win the Masters and the career grand slam.

We heard the strike from the fairway, and the crowd turned to follow the ball with laser beam focus as if they were at the Wimbledon final. I could see the pin, not where the ball was on the green, but as Rory lined it up, what I eventually found out was about six feet for the tournament, it looked close.

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The patrons around me went far too soon. They thought he’d holed it but, like when football fans think a ball has found the back of the net when it’s hit the side-netting, he moved towards the hole and motioned his ball in for a bogey.

“We’re headed to 10, guys,” I heard a few times around me. We laughed at these attempts to trick the unknowing patrons who thought the playoff didn’t start on hole 18. And some people did head for 10 – there were already hundreds of patrons sitting down in the bowl by the green, banking on the first playoff hole being halved, so they had a front-row seat for history.

Another cheer meant Rory had found the fairway again. I’m not entirely sure how McIlroy and Justin Rose were shuttled down to the 18^th tee – my mind was telling me we’d see them any second whizz past us on a buggy down the bumpy fairway.

This time, with the crowd a little subsided with those committed to the 10^th hole, I could see Rose’s backswing as he sent his ball careering at the pin. It looked like it almost landed in the cup. The patrons sounded concerned, not for him, but for Rory, who now had to get inside a very solid effort of his several times Ryder Cup teammate.

“I think he’s gone long,” said one man next to me. “The crowd was too quiet.” I gave my two-pence worth and said perhaps they fear another Rose birdie, hence the silence. While Rose has earned maximum respect of the Masters patrons, they only wanted one player to win. The patrons cheered for Rory’s shot into the green on playoff hole one, but my impression was he wasn’t at tap-in range.

Under the oak, I watched every step of Rose’s putt analysis, which took an understandable age. He was stung by another European friend in extra holes by Sergio Garcia at the Masters in 2017. He didn’t want this again. Rose missed and, in classy style, tapped home, which was a big indicator that Rory had a good look at birdie.

It didn’t take long for McIlroy to drop to his knees after he moved his putter at the ball. This was all I wanted to see. A few more heads bobbed up in front, but I saw it. I saw the fists bang the dry, green floor that has been trodden by so many champions. It was now bruised by the fists of only the sixth player ever to win all four majors, and blessed with his tears of relief.

He finally embraced his caddie Harry Diamond, and Rose respectfully waited his turn. Despite the self-inflicted agony he went through, the top of the leaderboard was always a magnet to McIlroy on this day.

Rory McIlroy: Career grand slam arrived after several blunders in the final round

These raucous, prolonged cheers in victory were significantly more upbeat compared with the stretch of holes 13 and 14, where McIlroy pulled his own arms out of the Green Jacket and cut them off.

I was one of the only people to follow the ball flight of his low, hooked approach to the 11^th green before that. “That ball is flying far too straight,” I said to my colleagues. Two more rolls of the ball, and Rory faced completely unnecessary disaster, flying far too close to the sun. He got burned two holes later.

The sound of horror and shock when McIlroy found Rae’s Creek on the par-5 13^th hole with his third shot after laying up will stay with me. Sitting in the grandstand to the left of the 14^th, which provided a perfect vantage point to see the 13^th green, it was chilling to see the Northern Irishman’s Masters hopes bounce off the bank low of the pin and disappear into the water.

When he finished the 13th with his second double-bogey of the day, I heard someone: “He has a one-shot lead.” When he was laying up to prepare himself for the calamity, he had a four-shot lead. The momentum of his birdies on holes 9 and 10 had vanished.

By that point, he had picked off Bryson DeChambeau, whose shoddy iron play caught up with him. When McIlroy finished each hole, the crowd moved on. Bryson’s score was meaningless. The man who broke his heart at the 2024 US Open and billed as his opponent on the day had been taken out.

As his wife Erica, dressed in all white like an Augusta caddie, looked over patrons’ shoulders by the 14^th green, we watched Rory fall behind Rose with another bogey. There had been groans as his approach from underneath the pines spun away down the slope at the front of the green – an underrated and brutal gradient on this brutal golf course.

For the first time, the patrons that circled the green following McIlroy were subdued. Surely, this wasn’t happening again – a player so rich with determination and talent was getting in his own way, again.

A matter of yards away, I peered over to the 17^th green where Rose emerged, playing with 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson. He was putting for a birdie, so said a fellow Englishman to me. “Rose is blooming,” one patron chuckled. He was delighted with himself.

By the sounds of the patrons when he rolled it by the lip, I could tell this wasn’t a birdie putt. McIlroy had a reprieve.

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It was my first time at Augusta, and although I’d had advice to head for the grandstand left of the 15th green, I hurried around the other side of the hole to try and get behind the 16^th hole, where you can also see the players marching down the par-5 15^th.

While on my way, there was a roar for Rory. It was like he’d holed his approach to 15 for an albatross. Now in a state of panic, I towed the no-running-rule line and reached where I wanted to be. Patrick Reed and Corey Conners finished on 16, McIlroy only made a birdie on 15, and as if by magic, the final pairing had reached the 16^th green and the curtains were soon to be drawn on this bonkers Sunday.

You aren’t allowed phones at Augusta, and there are no screens or electronic leaderboards. You only know as much as the guys behind these iconic white structures that flip over the numbers. You purely rely on gossip, like a school playground.

Rose’s card was being updated. The slot opened, and out came the number 11. He’d birdied 18 and tied McIlroy, and as the patrons cried, McIlroy peered up at said leaderboard like the rest of us, ahead of his birdie putt.

I didn’t follow them down 17. I chose to go up the left side of 18 to get ahead, where I unintentionally joined a search party of Ludvig Aberg and Jason Day, who were looking into the trees for Day’s ball. This is all well and good, Jason, but I have golf to watch, and I knew this ball search would buy me time to reach 18 and get some type of view.

Human corridors that allowed a path for players to the scoring tent blocked my progress around the back of the green.

Hang on! Rory’s row on the leaderboard was changing. The results were in from 17 and, after a short stutter from the leaderboard operator, he moved to 12-under and needed only a par for the grand slam.

Then, a lightbulb appeared on my head. “I’ll try the clubhouse balcony”.

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