Golfpocalypse
Rory McIlroy's Masters win might have been the ultimate 'dudes crying' moment in golf
Augusta National
Golfpocalypse is a collection of words about golf (professional and otherwise) with very little in the way of a point, and the Surgeon General says it will make you a worse person. Reach out to The Golfpocalypse with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at shane.spr8@gmail.com.
On Wednesday, I came across this Instagram post where a woman seems legitimately pissed that her husband cried when Rory McIlroy won the Masters, but hadn't cried at their wedding even though her dad gave an allegedly moving speech. (I'd like to see the speech to judge if it was truly tear-worthy, but that's not important right now.) I sent this to my wife, who pointed out that I did cry at our wedding and am thus a better husband, which was a relief, because while I'm prone to crying at movies and sports results, I can't remember the last time I shed a tear at something that happened in my actual life. Unless you're an elite athlete I've never met or a Wes Anderson film, you will mostly find me cold and heartless.
But, yes, I also got teary-eyed watching Rory break down in the wake of his victory, and I think it was inevitable. Even if I didn't like him (I do), the sheer catharsis of that moment after enduring a decade of excruciating major failures was a testament to his resilience, and the way he collapsed on the green felt like an outpouring of all that pain. The man literally buckled beneath the weight of it. It was greatness achieved at a serious price, and in the context of sports that's always going to get me. Have my tears, you Irish devil.
I'm not alone. In my Slack friend group, I polled all the golf nuts on whether they cried, and as of this writing, 20 of the 36 people who responded also cried. (And frankly, some of the 16 who didn't cry are emotionally dead inside, so their votes probably shouldn't count.) I texted the other 11 people in my spring fourball league, and so far we're 10/10 on tears among that group. Anytime you're getting well over 50% of manly masculine men volunteering the information that they wept in front of the TV, you've got a watershed moment—pun extremely intended—in the realm of dudes crying. Maybe Tiger's Masters win in 2019 equals or tops it, but I can't think of anything else in golf that had this kind of universal weepy impact.
Which is nice. In this case, I think the cliches about the world being a cold, cynical place, and the beauty in finding a shared moment of emotion within it, apply. As much as I wish for the angry wife in the Instagram post that the vision of her in a wedding dress or her dad's (highly questionable) speech had moved her husband to tears, I also think she should be grateful that literally anything can get to him. If it's Rory winning the green jacket, so be it—it proves he has a heart in general. He just doesn't love you.
Kidding! Maybe. Anyway, being a man is a little bit of a weird deal in 2025, and it keeps getting weirder. I don't envy boys growing up right now, because half the world seems to want a kind of performative sensitivity that won't feel true to character, while the other half wants cutthroat masculinity that is also not honest and has the added pain of eating away at the soul. Watching Rory secure a green jacket is that perfect sweet spot, where it's that combo of greatness and resilience that men (and a lot of women!) eat up, but also lets you express an emotional side without fear of judgment. Speaking only for myself, it was not only good to cry along with Rory, but it feels pretty good to admit you cried. It was cathartic on a few different levels, and we need more of that.
So Rory's win was a gift in more ways than one. Not only did we get to see a phenomenal golf story play out, and not only did we see the extremely rare completion of a career grand slam, but we also got a collective emotional catharsis for the golfing dudes of the world. And next time our wife or kids do something that should make us emotional, maybe we can all just think of Rory, collapsed and shaking on the 18th green, let the waterworks flow, and let everyone think we are good husbands and fathers. It's a win-win!
FIVE TOUR THOUGHTS: MASTERS EDITION
1. The bizarre quality of Rory's final round felt a lot like fate, didn't it? I have no idea what I believe on that front, so I'm not making any cosmic claims, but just as it felt a million things had to go right for Tiger to win in 2019, ditto for Rory last weekend. I mean, if you looked at the leaderboard before the round, and someone told you Rory was about to shoot a 73, what odds would you give him of winning? Maybe 10%? From Bryson's blowup to Ludvig's late stumble to Reed's three-putt on 13, it just seemed like the dominoes were falling for him, despite the fact that he was clearly out of his mind with nerves. Even the stuff that happened before Sunday, like Scheffler with his 71-72 Friday/Saturday stint, seemed out of character in Rory's favor. It's probably true that all golf tournaments are weird to some degree, but this one felt especially like a Greek epic reaching its conclusion.
2. Food for thought: go back to the Players Championship, Sunday night, 18th hole. Rory putts for par in near-darkness, misreads the break (it went right instead of left), but the ball catches the right edge and drops in. Ten minutes later, J.J. Spaun has a long birdie putt for the win, it's dead center but stops just short. If either of those moments goes differently, and Rory ends up blowing a three-shot lead, does he have the mental juice to win the Masters? Game of inches, baby.
3. People have immediately gone from "Rory will never win a slam" to "could he win the calendar slam this year?", and while normally I would be the guy pumping the brakes on that madness ... I mean, the PGA is at Quail Hollow! It seems like he wins 75% of tournaments he plays there. I don't need him to win the calendar slam, but I would like him to win the PGA just to get that Jordan Spieth circa 2015 buzz going ... there's nothing like someone winning the first two and getting our minds racing with possibilities. (In reality, he's probably so relieved to win the Masters that he checks out mentally and just coasts until Portrush. Who can blame him?)
4. Justin Rose immediately into the Mt. Rushmore of "gracious losers in a big moment." The sheer amount of pain that guy must have been feeling, especially after also finishing second at Troon, was enormous. He's experiencing a career renaissance, but he's smart enough to know that at age 44, he's not going to have many bites of the apple left, and winning the Masters (especially after he already lost one in a playoff to Sergio) would have been the perfect career capstone. But he kept his head, congratulated Rory, and understood the context of the scene perfectly. I already had a ton of respect for Rose, but I gained so much more on Sunday.
5. On the flip side, I didn't love Bryson's whole "Rory wouldn't talk to me" routine. If you watch the interview, it seems peevish at best (throughout the whole interview, not just the Rory part), and even if Rory was being a dick to him on the course (which I highly doubt ... according to Bob Rotella, it was just hyper-focus and nothing personal), you have to understand that this isn't the time to bring up even a hint of sour grapes. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it bolsters my secret theory that if Bryson were in front of the public more often than four times a year, in situations where he didn't control the narrative like he can on his YouTube channel, the perception of him would change pretty quickly.
THE ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD LOCKS OF THE WEEK
Golfpocalypse is not a gambling advice service, and you should never heed anything written here. Better picks are here.
Career Record: 7-66. I can't lie to you, I'm having trouble seeing the positive side right now.
On the PGA Tour, I think Scottie gets his groove back, setting up a showdown with Rory at Quail, where he tries to exorcise the demons of getting arrested at last year's PGA. (Imagine reading this sentence one year ago.)
At the JM Eagle LA Championship on the LPGA (all-time too-long name), I'm taking Nelly Korda because I'm sick of taking Jeeno Thitikul and not winning. Jeeno has not been kind to the absolute ironclad locks. She may be our first enemy.
At the Volvo China Open on the DP World Tour, I'm taking some Finnish guy named Tapio Pulkkanen, because the first round has already finished as I write this and he went 9 under. You could call this cheating, but I'm desperate for any kind of win. And hey, the guy has a weird but kinda cool hat! (Apologies for the jinx, Tapio.)
THE "DUMB TAKE I KIND OF BELIEVE"
Have two Masters a year. It's such a tremendous experience, why not just double it? Augusta National already proved they can run one in November, what are we waiting for? And now that I'm thinking about it, what if the whole calendar was just the four majors repeating over and over?
READER EMAIL OF THE WEEK
I sent the email out late this week asking for moments that made you cry in golf, so I'm going to hit you with two, starting with the sincere one from an anonymous reader:
Watching Rory lose the Open at St Andrews was devastating. You could feel the tension on the course build up as Rory burned edges and Cam started shooting up the board. Little kids yelling “come on Rors!” and him unable to make a putt. The weight of the Majors drought. The importance of St Andrews. It was suffocating!
And then this one that made me laugh from "Average Fan" on Twitter:
When wesley got banned from the pga tour.
We will look back on Rory's stumble at St. Andrews and Wesley Bryan getting a PGA Tour ban as the two most tragic moments of the century in professional golf.
Previously on Golfpocalypse:
I want to be a draw alpha, not a fade beta
If you had to give up golf or sex for the rest of your life, which would it be?
I am the recent victim of golf snobbery, and I'm mad
Should the Tour just move to an F1 style schedule and be done with it?
I was the world's most annoying teenage golf maintenance worker
Can golf still be a spiritual experience in 2024?
There is nothing stranger than a golfer's brain...just ask us
I have the dumbest golf pet peeve, but I can't shake it
If you talk about politics on the course, please, for God's sake, stop
Loving Golf in 2024 is about finding where the money isn't
I believed in the magic of Tiger Woods when I was a kid, but I'm a cynic now
If you can enjoy playing golf alone, you have achieved Nirvana
I took 12 stitches to the head for golf before I even loved it
An annual 'Friends Ryder Cup' trip is the greatest thing in golf
Marshals at public golf courses need to get way meaner
I, and I alone, have the genius tweak to fix the Tour Championship
It cannot be fun to play golf when you're egregiously bad
Confession: I break clubs when I'm mad
Playing golf in bad weather makes me feel alive
Caring what other people think of your golf game is annoying to other people
Sympathize with Rory, because choking sucks