AUGUSTA, Ga. — One putt to win the Masters. Can you do it? How about one from 5 feet? It would take the weight of the world off your shoulders. It would put you in the history books. Green jacket for life? You get that too.

But it’s late in the day, almost 7 p.m., and these greens are getting slick. They are already lighting fast and now you have thousands of patrons breathing down your neck. Can you make it? What about the stress? The nerves? The pressure?

Experts will tell you this pressure is good. It means you are in the thick of it, about to do something meaningful. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy — nothing at Augusta National is and certainly not when the Masters is on the line.

And if you missed that putt, how would you respond? And what if somehow, someway, you got a second chance?

On Sunday, Rory McIlroy, your newest Masters champion, was faced with all of these questions.

It ended up being the most significant day of his golfing life.

***

HOW DO YOU SLEEP WHEN ONE OF THE BIGGEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE AWAITS? There’s a story from more than 100 years ago, when Walter Hagen and Mike Brady were set for a playoff at the 1919 U.S. Open. Hagen was out at a club well into the morning, and when someone mentioned that his opponent was already sleeping, Hagen quipped, “He may be in bed, but he ain’t sleeping.”

On Sunday, McIlroy led Bryson DeChambeau by two with 18 holes to play, but the nerves were intense. He didn’t have an appetite and his stomach was in knots. His legs felt like jelly.

“It’s such a battle in your head of trying to stay in the present moment and hit this next shot good and hit the next shot good,” he said. “That was the battle today. My battle today was with myself. It wasn’t with anyone else.”

He’s been here before. Like at the 2022 Open at St. Andrews, when he was tied for the lead after 54 holes, McIlroy could see the leaderboard from his Rusacks hotel room. How could you not look out the window and think about how your life might change?

“Of course you’ve got to let yourself dream,” he said then. “You’ve got to let yourself think about it and what it would be like.”

McIlroy had been dreaming for a while now. He’d been stuck on four majors since 2014 and still needed the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. And despite all of McIlroy’s well-documented major heartbreak, entering this week he’s went on to win four of his six 54-hole major leads or co-leads. The only solo lead he didn’t convert? Fourteen years ago at the 2011 Masters, when he shot 81 in the final round.

“That was 14 years ago,” he said Saturday. “I’m glad I have a short memory.”

***

At 2:25 P.M. ON SUNDAY, THE GROUNDS ARE A BUZZ. It’s nearly impossible to see anything on the 1st tee; a fine day to be a good 6-foot-2.

A man on top of a ladder working the main old-timey scoreboard right of the first fairway breaks to watch the final pairing tee off. He laughed when he saw the sea of patrons following the golfers down the fairway, an orderly sea of pastels.

Although the ladder man still might not have been able to get a good angle on McIlroy’s drive, which found the fairway bunker. He blasted out short and chipped on to 18 feet. You didn’t need to see the putt to know he missed it. Twice. With each one the crowd groaned.

It took one hole for this heavyweight bout to be all square. Down the second fairway, a scoreboard flashed the final pairings’s scores. No phones are allowed here, so this is how you find out who is winning. This and the roars.

“What happened?” one patron asked.

“Rory three-putted and made double,” someone said. “It was ugly.”

McIlroy drove it into the bunker off the tee on 2 and settled for par. DeChambeau birdied to take a one-shot lead.

“Walking to the 2nd tee, the first thing that popped into my head was Jon Rahm a couple years ago making double and going on to win,” McIlroy said. “So at least my mind was in the right place and was at least thinking positively about it.”

Then McIlroy started to throw some punches. He birdied 3 and 4; DeChambeau bogeyed both. It was the second and third two-shot swings in the first four holes.

“This is going to be a great battle,” one patron said.

He was right, for a while. And Masters patrons deserved a good Sunday. Scottie Scheffler pulled away on the back nine last year. Jon Rahm did the year before. Three years ago Scheffler won in a laugher. You’d have to go back to 2021, when eventual winner Hideki Matsuyama and Will Zalatoris battled it out in the final pairing Sunday, to find a finish that was actually close. But even that final one-stroke margin of victory made it look much closer than it actually was.

The patrons were invested, flooding the areas around the ropes and spilling overflowing cups of Crow’s Nest trying to jockey for position. And without Tiger Woods here, there wasn’t even that magnetic force on the other side of the course stealing all the patrons.

They all followed McIlroy and DeChambeau, golf’s best new rivalry, who traded pars for four straight holes before McIlroy made birdie on 9.

They walked to the second nine with McIlroy leading by four. Amen Corner awaited… but McIlroy’s been in this position before.

***

LAST JUNE, MCILROY SKIDDED OUT OF A PINEHURST RESORT PARKING LOT. Minutes earlier he watched from the podium of a scoring room, hat still crooked on his head, the universal sign that he had just been through hell. He bogeyed three of his last four — including short par misses on 16 and 18 — to hand DeChambeau a one-stroke win.

“I look back on that day, just like I look back on some of my toughest moments in my career, I’ll learn a lot from it and I’ll hopefully put that to good use,” he said a month later in Scotland. “It’s something that’s been a bit of a theme throughout my career. I’ve been able to take those tough moments and turn them into great things not very long after that.”

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It was, arguably, the greatest major heartbreak of his career. There was also St. Andrews in 2022, when he led by two with nine to play and lost. And then there was the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, when he led by two with five to play and lost again.

Two years ago at LACC, in the final question of his press conference, McIlroy was asked not how he deals with the disappointment, but if it ever gets exhausting answering questions about the disappointment.

“It is, but at the same time, when I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet,” he said. “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”

***

IN 2011, MCILROY WALKED TO THE 10TH TEE at Augusta National with a one-shot lead and shot 43 on the back nine. He won the U.S. Open later that summer, but the Masters scar tissue remained.

Now, things are different. He’s a different golfer — a more complete version of himself, he says. He works with sports psychologist Bob Rotella and talks about chasing a feeling. He has notes written on the back of his yardage book that help keep him in his bubble. He glances at them randomly walking down fairways.

He birdied 10 to increase his lead to four, but with a three-shot lead on the 13th he made an inexcusable mistake. McIlroy got conservative and hit 3-wood and 7-iron for an easy layup — then flipped a wedge into Rae’s Creek and made double bogey, his fourth of the week. A few holes ahead, Justin Rose was going low and had just birdied 15 and 16. Forget Bryson, who was leaking oil — Rose and McIlroy were now tied at 11 under.

On 14, McIlroy missed the fairway, missed the green and then missed a short putt for par, leaving it on the edge. But Rose followed McIlroy’s bogey with one of his own, failing to get up and down on 17. After Ludvig Aberg birdied 15, there was a three-way tie at the top, although he didn’t stick around. But Rose did.

The Olympic gold medalist drained a 20-footer for birdie on the 18th to take the clubhouse lead. Two holes behind, McIlroy heard the roar.

McIlroy had just hit one of his best shots of the day into 15 and two-putted for birdie. Now he parred 16 and had two holes left. Playing them in one under would win the Masters. Even would be a playoff. Worse than that? Well, you know… more heartbreak.

McIlroy was shakier on the second nine, but he pummeled an 8-iron to a couple of feet away and made birdie on 17. A par on 18 would make him a Masters champion for life. But after he found the fairway, his approach landed in the bunker. He splashed out and needed to drain a putt from 5 feet to win the Masters. The patrons held their breath as he pulled back the putter.

***

YOU PROBABLY KNOW BY NOW MCILROY DID NOT MAKE THE PUTT. But he got another chance, another opportunity to win the Masters.

Rose (66) and McIlroy (73) went back to the 18th tee deadlocked at 11 under. Rose hit his approach to 15 feet; McIlroy to 4 feet. Rose missed. This time, McIlroy didn’t.

And this time, Rory McIlroy sobbed. Life is about making the most of your second chances, and McIlroy cashed in on his. Ironically, the putt was about the same distance of the one he missed at last year’s U.S. Open. Only in this version he made it, threw his putter into the air, put his hands on his head, knelt down and sobbed.

“It was all relief,” McIlroy said. “There wasn’t much joy in that reaction. It was all relief. The joy came pretty soon after that. But I’ve been coming here 17 years, and it was a decade-plus of emotion that came out of me there.”

With his wife and daughter trailing behind him, McIlroy made his champion’s walk to the scoring area. He screamed, hugged, high-fived and embraced others along the way. Finally, when he was done, he shouted to a group of friends.

“I gotta go get a green jacket!”

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