Rory McIlroy’s Players-winning weapon that he must bring to The Masters

Rory McIlroy relied on this shot to win at TPC Sawgrass. Now, he has to bring it to Augusta National to complete the Grand Slam.

Rory McIlroy practiced one shot over and over again this week at TPC Sawgrass, and golf fans saw him execute it perfectly on the par-3 17th during Monday’s playoff.

After making birdie on the par-5 16th, McIlroy held a one-shot advantage over J.J. Spaun. He again had the honor, and finding the surface on this treacherous island green would put enormous pressure on his opponent’s shoulders. So McIlroy went to his go-to shot. He hit a flighted three-quarter 9-iron, the ideal trajectory for gusty conditions. His ball landed safely in the middle of the green, 38 feet away.

But as McIlroy selected his club, Spaun watched him pull out his 9-iron. Feeling somewhat perplexed and knowing McIlroy went with nine, Spaun opted for his 8-iron, given that McIlroy hits a much longer ball than he does. Granted, after the playoff, Spaun admitted that it was an 8-iron all day, but the visual of Spaun checking out McIlroy’s bag is hard to ignore. Regardless, Spaun did not pull off the shot McIlroy did. Instead, he airmailed the green and found the water with his 8-iron. His shot reached an apex of 96 feet, significantly higher than McIlroy’s. And if anything, he thought it was short.

“I could not believe it was long,” Spaun said.

“It just wasn’t my luck of the gust, I guess.”

That all but handed the Northern Irishman his second Players title and his second victory of 2025. But McIlroy would not have gotten there without this particular shot.

“I have this little three-quarter three-quarter shot, and my 9-iron goes 147 with that shot. But with the wind, it was going right around that 130 number, which was the number I really wanted to hit on 17. So I knew even before I got up there, I knew that was the shot I was going to hit,” McIlroy said after his win at The Players.

“I felt like it was a little more sheltered by the green than it was on the tee. When my ball was in the air, I was telling it to get down, and obviously, J.J. hit his up in the air, I couldn’t believe that it went straight through the wind like that. Yeah, it was tricky to judge, but I sort of had that shot in my head, that little three-quarter, three-quarter 9-iron, and made a good swing at it.”

Before the playoff started on Monday morning, McIlroy once again rehearsed this particular shot on the driving range. To demonstrate how attentive he is to the most intricate details, McIlroy turned himself toward the 3rd green at TPC Sawgrass, which helped replicate the wind he would face on 17. He needed to see how this shot would work into a stiff breeze, in 53-degree weather, no less.

“Seeing there was no one around this morning, it was nice to be able to just turn around and hit those shots in the wind I felt like there was going to be on 17,” McIlroy said.

“This week has been a challenge. I’ve went down to the back end of the range sometimes and been hitting the ball like in a left-to-right wind. It’s hard to obviously get both winds when you’re warming up, but there were so many crosswinds this week that that was — I’d go down to the back end of the range because I knew that that was the same direction as like the first tee shot, so I liked knowing what that first tee shot is going to do.”

TPC Sawgrass slaughtered countless players during the third and final rounds on Saturday and Sunday. Winds blew beyond 30 miles per hour, frustrating players and sending them into agony and disbelief. Clubs were thrown, and cuss words were dropped.

That also happened last year at Augusta National, where, no matter how hard the wind blows, gusts come and go as they please. The winds around Amen Corner help make it so treacherous and so deceiving. Similar sentiments can be said about the breeze that whirls around the 15th and 16th greens as well as on the 2nd and 7th. You need to control your ball flight at Augusta. Perhaps more so than anywhere else on the planet. Finding the low parts of the green is crucial while missing the wrong spots proves detrimental and devastating. A change in wind direction mid-flight can turn a promising shot into a costly one.

McIlroy knows that.

Which is why he needs to bring this winning weapon to The Masters.

“I said to [my caddy] Harry [Diamond] there, that [three-quarter] shot is going to take us a long way,” McIlroy added.

“I’ve become really comfortable with that shot, so even in conditions like this, I feel like I’ve got everything pretty much under control, which is a really nice feeling.”

At last year’s Masters, McIlroy tied for 22nd. A 5-over 77 during Friday’s blustery second round kept him from contending, as he ultimately finished 15 shots behind Scottie Scheffler.

“I think back to the second round at Augusta last year; it was so gusty. I maybe didn’t have all the shots required to go out and shoot something under par that day,” McIlroy said.

“When the conditions come like that, I just feel like I’m a lot better prepared to handle them, especially since it’s always been okay off the tee, but it’s fighting the sort of wedges and short irons, which have been the issue, and I feel like I’ve been able to rectify that.”

McIlroy has long been regarded as one of the best drivers of the golf ball the game has ever seen. Look no further than how he opened Monday’s playoff: he hit a tantalizing 3-yard draw that split the 16th fairway and topped out at 339 yards. On a chilly, windy day, that is unheard of.

But now he has his short irons and wedges under control, which, like the 17th, he demonstrated again on the 16th. From that spot in the middle of the fairway, he hit a flighted wedge into the middle of the green. His ball landed 30 feet left of the pin, which sat dangerously close to the water’s edge. He then two-putted for birdie.

Then, on the 18th, needing a bogey-five to win the championship, McIlroy hit a three-quarter 8-iron, which, like his previous two strikes with this ball flight, proved successful.

“It’s a shot that I’ve always had with the wedges, but I’ve been reluctant to use it with 9-iron, 8-iron, 7-iron down. But this year, I’ve gotten more into using that shot with some of those lower clubs like the 9-iron on 17, the 8-iron at the last today,” McIlroy said.

“That’s more a shot that I’ve always really had. But I’ve just started to get more comfortable using it with longer clubs.”

He was on his game with his iron play all week, ranking fifth in the field in strokes gained approach. And a big reason for that is this go-to three-quarter shot.

Now he needs to bring it to Augusta, and if he can successfully employ it during The Masters, the talk of McIlroy failing to win the Grand Slam will finally come to a joyous end.

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.