All eyes now turn to McIlroy at Masters
Players champ is the man to beat in 2025; Bubble watching home stretch to Augusta
Rory McIlroy will take (at least) two tour wins to Augusta for first time (Tracy Wilcox/PGA Tour via Getty Images)
With signature wins at Pebble Beach and Sawgrass already in Rory McIlroy’s bag this season, all eyes now follow him to Augusta National where the “big one” looms even larger than usual.
The Masters remains the missing piece in McIlroy’s quest to join golf’s most exclusive club of career slam winners. He’s 0-16 at Augusta with a runner-up and four top-five finishes, but he’s 0-10 since it became the singular focus of his career-slam bid.
At 35 years old, McIlroy is a more complete player than he was at age 21 when he agonizingly let a three-shot lead in the final round melt away on the back nine. That more well-rounded Rory was on full display last week at TPC Sawgrass when he wasn’t at his best off the tee but still fashioned an array of remarkable recoveries when he needed it to win in tough conditions.
“I’m a way more complete player than I was back in 2009, 2010,” McIlroy said of his evolution not only at TPC Sawgrass but on all the toughest stages in golf. “I manage my game so much better. I have way more shots. I’m better around the greens. I’m a better overall golfer.”
McIlroy expanded on the point when his 28th PGA Tour win was secured.
“I’m a better putter. … I can flight my ball better in the wind. My ability to shape shots both ways. Yeah, I’d say those are the things. Really, I’m managing myself more around … by no means did I have my best stuff this week, but I was still able to win one of the biggest tournaments in the world. That’s a huge thing.”
Especially impressive was his ability to adjust to conditions like the ones thrown at the field last weekend with gusting winds that flipped directions before the playoff. “I feel like I can play in all conditions and anything that comes my way,” he said.
“I feel like I’ve got everything pretty much under control, which is a really nice feeling.”
McIlroy became the eighth player and first European to win multiple Players, and he joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler as the only players to win multiple majors and Players.
But while the Players is big, the players will tell you it’s not a major. It’s major-adjacent. Until McIlroy closes the deal again on another major for the first time since winning his third and fourth majors in 2014, it will remain a primary talking point.
The cumulative weight of narrow disappointments at St. Andrews, Los Angeles CC and Pinehurst the last three years still hang in the air, but McIlroy seems more focused than ever in changing the narrative and believes he’s hit a turning point.
“The U.S. Open was hard. The Irish Open (at Royal County Down) was hard. I bogeyed 15 and 17 on the way in there. That was a hard one to lose at home,” he said.
“But I feel like where it started to turn around was the next week at Wentworth. Billy Horschel beat me in a playoff at Wentworth, but the way I played down the stretch there, that’s the way I want to play. … I lost to an eagle when Billy holed that putt on 18 in the playoff, but I think that was sort of like the turning point.
“And then I did some work on my swing after Wentworth … and then went into the two Middle East events at the end of the year and was able to win that one. I feel that period, like October, November, was a pretty important one, and I was able to do some good work on my swing and then test it out pretty much straight after in a couple of tournaments, and I feel like that’s obviously carried into this year.
“Yeah, it doesn’t feel like I’m making those mistakes at the critical times like I was previously.”
This marks the first time McIlroy will show up at Augusta with two PGA Tour wins already under his belt — and two signature wins to boot. With world No. 1 and defending champion Scott Scheffler and now No. 3 Xander Schauffele still trying to sort out their games which were so dominant last year, McIlroy feels like the man to beat at this point in 2025.
McIlroy plans to play either Houston or San Antonio before the Masters to avoid rust of a three-way layoff.
The Players provided plenty of fodder for Scott Michaux’s “Birdies & Bogeys” in Global Golf Post.
J.J. Spaun’s humble emergence is the feel-good story of 2025 so far (Logan Bowles/Getty Images)
Bubble watch: Road to Augusta’s home stretch
The NCAA basketball tournament isn’t the only bit of March Madness in sports. The last month before the Masters contains its own share of bubble drama for players still trying to secure a coveted invitation to Augusta.
The 2025 Masters field actually contracted a bit last week with Tiger Woods announcing his surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon that is likely to scuttle another year of major starts for the 15-time major champion who will turn 50 at theend of the year. The five-time green jacket winner is most definitely out of the Masters for the fifth time in 12 years.
That drops the field to 91 qualified starters at the moment, with three more potential spots for winner at this week’s Valspar Championship as well as each of the two upcoming Texas events earning golden tickets.
Top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking on Monday, March 31, will also be invited and that list will most definitely include Players Championship runner-up J.J. Spaun, who vaulted to No. 25 in the world from 57th with his star turn at TPC Sawgrass in a valiant playoff defeat to Rory McIlroy.
“I didn’t know what my ceiling was, I guess you could say. I still guess I don’t know what it is,” the refreshingly humble Spaun said of his sudden rise in prominence after battling doubts about his future on tour. “Who knows? The sky’s the limit.”
Three other players currently inside the top 50 would be fresh additions to the Masters field if they can remain there for two more weeks — Daniel Berger (No. 41), Stephan Jaeger (44) and Laurie Canter (47). Berger and Canter have both sailed up the ranking from Nos. 125 and 126, respectively, to start the year. Jaeger is the only one of the trio playing this week’s Valspar at Innisbrook.
Berger is playing more and more like his old self every week as he is healthy again for the first time after returning from the purgatory of a back injury that cost him a year-and-a-half of recovery and stacked up seasons of irrelevance after once ranking as high as No. 12 in the world in 2020. He’s posting consistently strong performances since last fall’s runner-up at the RSM Classic including another runner-up in Phoenix and five other top-25 finishes this season.
Canter, who has never played in the Masters, is back from a purgatory of his own for participating as a reserve in LIV events. He became the first former LIV competitor to participate in a PGA Tour event last week at the Players, but his dramatic rise up the ranks is due to his form on the DP World Tour where he’s finished first (Bahrain Championship), second (South African Open) and third (Dubai Desert Classic) already this year. Canter could have bolstered his top-50 status if he’d backed up an opening 68 in the Players, but his second-round 76 cost him a missed cut by 1 shot.
The most interesting player to watch outside the bubble is Michael Kim, who started the year ranked No. 155 in the world and is up for 54th thanks to a stretch of torrid play since Phoenix with finishes of T2, T13, T13, T6 and finally solo fourth in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. His top-15 run ended with a narrow missed cut by 1 stroke at the Players, but Kim added this week’s Valspar to his schedule to try to play his hot hand into a second chance at playing Augusta.
“I wasn’t sure if I was playing Valspar but since I had a couple extra days of rest, decided to play,” Kim wrote on his wonderfully candid Twitter account. “I like the golf course and I want to give myself as many chances at qualifying for the Masters.”