Opening the final round of the 2025 Masters as the outright leader, Rory McIlroy had to exorcise his demons in a very public way on Sunday at Augusta National in Georgia. With a major tournament drought which spanned 11 years, the 35 year old had to overcome mental miscues, furious charges from his competitors, and some perplexing shot selection. But at the end of the day, it was McIlroy, overcome by emotion on the 1st playoff hole, who was eventually crowned Masters champion, completing his career grand slam.
“There were points in my career where I didn’t know if I would have this nice garment over my shoulders,” McIlroy said after winning. “But I didn’t make it easy today. I certainly didn’t make it easy. I was nervous…It was one of the toughest days I’ve ever had on the golf course…I started to wonder if it would ever be my time.”
Indeed the newly minted champion didn’t make things easy on himself at Augusta, with many having flashbacks to 2011 when he lost a 4 shot lead on the final day. England’s Justin Rose shot a blistering 66 to finish 11 under par for the tournament. And with Rory struggling to reign in his emotions, it looked as though another chapter was being written in McIlroy’s agonizing run of coming undone in major tournaments.
McIlroy shot a final round 73 to finish 1 over on the day, punctuated by hiccups at 1, 13, and 14. None was more heart wrenching than his missed putt on 18 to win it all which slid past the hole, sending the tournament into a playoff, and fans into a frenzy over whether the crowd favourite was imploding once again.
The Northern Irishman looked visibly distraught as he made his way back to the tee box to prepare for the playoff, and was left to pace around while Rose was carted over from the range. Being left alone with 11 years worth of thoughts, fears, and emotions in front of the eyes of the world couldn’t have been an easy process. It would have been easy to crumble.
But McIlroy striped his drive down the middle of the fairway, outdriving his opponent by 30+ yards, then hit an approach shot for the ages to force Rose to need to drain a tricky 15 footer to extend the playoff. When Rose’s putt burned the edge of the cup, all that stood between McIlroy and his career grand slam was a 3 feet knee knocker. But this time, he made no mistakes about it, draining the putt and collapsing to the green in a display of emotion rarely seen from the stoic McIlroy.
Rounding out the top 5 on the day were Patrick Reed (3rd), Scottie Scheffler (4th) and Sungjae Im & Bryson DeChambeau (T-5). For his efforts McIlroy will take home $4.2M from the record setting prize pool. But more importantly, he finally completes the career grand slam, and gets the monkey off his back which has followed him around for the better part of the last decade.
The full list of finishers & prize money is as follows:
2025 Masters prize money, purse, payouts
Total purse: $21 million
1st — $4,200,000 — Rory McIlroy
2nd — $2,268,000 — Justin Rose
3rd — $1,428,000 — Patrick Reed
4th — $1,008,000 — Scottie Scheffler
T-5th — $798,000 — Sungjae Im, Bryson DeChambeau
7th — $703,500 — Ludvig Åberg
T-8th — $588,000 — Xander Schauffele, Zach Johnson, Corey Conners, Jason Day
T-12th — $462,000 — Max Homa, Harris English
T-14th — $336,000 — Tom Hoge, Tyrrell Hatton, Jon Rahm, Matt McCarty, Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson
T-21st — $210,000 — Davis Riley, Daniel Berger, Tommy Fleetwood, Byeong Hun An, Hideki Matsuyama, Viktor Hovland
T-27th — $158,550 — Michael Kim, Aaron Rai
T-29th — $142,800 — Joaquín Niemann, Denny McCarthy, Sahith Theegala
T-32nd — $121,538 — Rasmus Høgaard, Maverick McNealy, Brian Campbell, Max Greyserman
T-36th — $101,063 — Justin Thomas, Brian Harman, Charl Schwartzel, Patrick Cantlay
T-40th — $88,200 — Matt Fitzpatrick, Nick Taylor
T-42nd — $75,600 — Danny Willett, Akshay Bhatia, J.T. Poston, Shane Lowry
T-46th — $61,180 — Sam Burns, Davis Thompson, Wyndham Clark
49th — $54,600 — Min Woo Lee
50th — $52,920 — J.J. Spaun
51st — $51,660 — Nico Echavarria
T-52nd — Tom Kim, Stephan Jaeger
***The remainder of the professionals will receive cash prizes downward from $51,660 depending on the scores. All professionals who missed the cut will receive $25,000.