I’ll admit, I’ve never been one to write about sporting events. In fact, you’re currently reading my first column. We are extremely passionate for golf, and the chase to experience and appreciate the best courses in the world along with the stories that accompany them. However, the 2025 Masters was so special that I couldn’t wait to write about it, and hopefully share a unique angle on what we were all so lucky to watch this weekend.
We live in a world developed by human achievement, with nearly everything we use made possible by breakthroughs in engineering and technology. While we all have different interests, shared adoration of the world’s most celebrated works have linked us together for generations. So the question begs…
what actually defines a masterpiece?
In our game, a PGA Tour winner is crowned 39 times a year. For many of them, a life changing moment that only happens once. For many of us, the attention quickly shifts to the following week’s tournament. Can you name the 2022 Valero Texas Open champion off the top of your head? The 2023 Cognizant Classic champion?
With all due respect to J.J. Spaun and Chris Kirk ( I promise I picked these tournaments randomly and have nothing against these two), it’s safe to say many of the Tour’s weekly offerings fail to capture the magic inside of us. The magic that’s unlocked by an ephemeral formula of canvas, captivation, and circumstance. The magic that was found this weekend.
When it comes to the canvas, what’s left to be said about The National? A reminder of the natural beauty and serenity we seek every time we head out the door for 18 holes, parlayed with the allure from being just outside the reach of our fingertips.
A feeling unquestionably built inside a certain someone over the last decade plus. Always…just out of reach.
For us? The privilege to step foot on the grounds. For him? The honor of taking home its most cherished treasure.
The extensively covered stories and secrets of the hallowed grounds in Augusta, Georgia give us a glimpse of how the club, like the tradition that accompanies it, is unlike any other. If this author finds his way inside the gates one day, anyone who checks in on our site will know about it (shameless plug). For now?, it remains the ultimate canvas, seamlessly knowing when to assert itself or provide the backdrop for the moment.
A masterpiece doesn’t have to be flawless. The art history world has spent centuries speculating that Francesco del Giocondo’s wife suffered from clinical hypothyroidism. The canvas on which her portrait is painted shows cracks and warping. Are her lack of eyebrows an example of her artist’s haste? These blemishes, conspiracies, and corresponding stories behind them don’t impact the legacy of the Mona Lisa, they build it.
The beauty in the world’s most famous masterpiece isn’t found in the 77x53cm oil painting, it’s held in its ability to universally captivate art historians and the rest of us alike. 8 million people a year travel to Paris to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece. If you were to take a guess, how many can name another Da Vinci painting? If it weren’t for a recent trip to Louvre, I certainly wouldn’t be able to.
However, when I was asked what I was looking forward to seeing the most in Paris, the answer was the Mona Lisa. Why? The chance to come face to face with a piece of art whose aura has transcended well beyond the realm of art enthusiasts into a worldwide icon is special. Everybody knows about the Mona Lisa. She is uniquely captivating, to the origin of her flaws. The feeling when you turn the corner and see her for the first time is indescribable.
The winning performance we witnessed Sunday wasn’t perfect, far from it in fact. Where it was perfect was captivating…a lot of people. The final round broadcast averaged 12.7 million viewers, peaking around 19.5 million, making it the most watched golf telecast in over seven years.
It goes without saying that my network of golf friends was glued to the television from Thursday-Sunday. Our work productivity was dismal, leaving us wondering when we’ll smarten up and just take Thursday and Friday of this annual holiday off.
Sunday was different.
Parents, Aunts, Uncles, Girlfriends, Friends who have never swung a club in their life, all shared an “I can’t miss this” feeling as the final group made the turn around 4:30 on Sunday afternoon. They may not have understood all the rules of the game, but they were unequivocally captivated by the masterpiece that was unfolding in front of us.
Which brings us to circumstance.
Golf is a beautiful, yet cruel game. It has a dark sense of humor. You reach the heights of driving a ball 300 yards down the middle and the lows of missing a 2 foot putt in the span of 10 minutes. You can hit a great shot and be punished, an awful shot yet rewarded. If you play the game consistently, I don’t have to explain the emotional roller coaster as you know the feeling.
To those who don’t, what you saw on the 18th hole at Augusta was a microcosm of this game we can’t get enough of. Success,failure,success. Rinse and repeat, while trying to keep your head in one piece. Sounds fun right? (Spoiler: it is, and we’re obsessed with the chase for more)
Fortunately for those of us entering the notorious lottery to watch the professionals tee it up at Augusta, most of our failures on the course are nothing more than self torture and/or a few rounds of drinks owed to friends through lost bets. The opposite couldn’t have been more true for the man that took center stage on Sunday.
Professional golf is the most vulnerable stage imaginable in sports. Centimeters define success or failure. There are no teammates to defer blame to when things go wrong. You’re a man/woman alone on the green when disaster strikes. Those networks with tens of millions of viewers tuning in to see how you do? They can afford cameras that get the money shot of your reaction when devastation occurs, and they’re always rolling.
The circumstances couldn’t have been larger on Sunday. A decade long pursuit of the final piece to golf immortality that has been riddled with crushing, gut wrenching defeats. A career grand slam hasn’t been won in 25 years, and one of golf’s biggest stars was in his best position to win it since 2011. How’s that for captivating?
There are times where the stage is set, the world is locked in, and the circumstances are grand. Every golfer dreams of donning the green jacket. Yet, the result isn’t the sum of all its parts and the outcome sputters. You can have all of the best ingredients, but a legendary chef has to put them together with finesse to arrive at a Michelin Star worthy dish. Sometimes the cards just don’t fall the way we hoped.
Anticlimactic finishes have been the trend at The Masters the last couple years, and while the 6th career Grand Slam winner in history would’ve preferred cementing his nameplate in the Augusta National champions locker room in less dramatic fashion, what we got amplified the impact of his achievement even more.
We fell in love with the journey we went on with the man from Northern Ireland early Sunday evening. He pulled us in with the superhuman approaches on 15 and 17. The birdie on the penultimate hole felt like the winning moment. He was just one hole away, a hole he hadn’t bogeyed all week. Then, when it felt like it was finally his time, the unfathomable miss. Just like 18 at Pinehurst.
In that moment, a man with a novel of accolades and over 100 million dollars in on course career earnings felt exactly like one of us. He was unable to hide his emotions walking to sign his scorecard after missing a putt he makes 99 times out of 100. The 1 had always come at the worst time for him, and it had once again.
A necessity to a great plot in film is capturing the audience into investing in the lead character, then having him/her hit a grueling low point that we feel with them. The best evoke emotion out of an audience wishing they could jump through the screen to help this fictional character through the challenges they face.
Millions of hearts sank seeing the putt on 18 burn the edge, the writers had us on a string now.
I truly don’t know how one regains himself and answers the bell for another hole after a round of that emotional demand. It felt like a certainty that we’d see the shot tracker veering violently to the right off the tee or a subpar approach. However, when the door was open once more, there was no mistaking it.
The outpour of raw emotion was amongst my favorite I’ve seen in any sport. Celebrations like this are why we love not just golf, but sports so much. Bryson DeChambeau’s U.S. Open celebration last year comes to mind and was pretty epic, but the canvas of Augusta and the circumstance of a decade long burden being released?
Impossible to replicate, like any masterpiece.
Rory McIlroy finally has his.