What You Can Learn from the 2025 Masters

PSA: Yes, sorry I know this is a little late! I ran into some logistical problems that prevented me from getting this out when I wanted, but those should be resolved now. Happy reading and hope this helps- this was one of my favorite posts so far to write!

The 2025 Masters was objectively one more the more compelling Masters in the last 15 years, if not the 21st century. A Justin Rose and Zach Johnson revival to Rory and Bryson being in the final pair and finally ending with Rory breaking through for an all time historic win, here is what you can learn from the incredible 2025 Masters tournament.

Understanding of the course, its undulations and intricacies, can help you identify spots to attack and spots you might want lay off from. Augusta is known for its curling fast greens and sloping fairways and you could see this on display throughout the entire event. I think a great example of this is the third hole, Flowering Peach, where you have a short par 4 only 350 yards. Four bunkers dot the left side of this fairway, roughly at about 250-260 yards, so the big hitters will choose to take driver over those and end up in a spot lower left of the green with a difficult pitch shot up the hill. If you have confidence in your short game, this is a preferrable spot to attack the pin on the right side of the green. You HAVE to make sure you get up the hill or you will certainly lose strokes and we saw this all week. Understanding how the fairway slopes down to the left in front of the green and how the green undulates on the front side will give you an advantage as far as pitching up the hill, hopefully gaining stokes like Rory and Justin Rose did in the last round. One other prime example that comes to mind from Augusta is number 13, Azalea. A severely sloped right to left fairway will require your attention on the approach shot, calling for a hooked lie. The green then slopes hard left to right for a high risk-reward hole, using the contours of the green to get a close eagle or birdie putt. You can see Sunjae Im playing this hole to perfection from Sunday’s final round. Golf is a game of minute detail and understanding where you can put the ball and where you CANNOT is integral to a good round of golf.

I think it’s hard not to recognize the impact of the tee to green play from this year’s Masters. I’m a big stats guy. I love looking at how certain holes score based on strategy and love looking at strokes gained. This really great website https://datagolf.com/live-tournament-stats shows just how much a certain golfer excelled at one area of the game compared to other golfers. Using strokes gained, you can see that the top 10 golfers in strokes gained Tee to Green all placed in the top 21 and ties of the tournament. Essentially, strokes gained tee to green is all play except putting so this includes off the tee, iron play, and strokes around the green. If you look at those same top 10 golfers in SG Tee to Green putting ranks? Only ONE (Justin Rose) had a top 10 putting rank. The winner himself was 43rd in strokes gained putting (he was top 10 everywhere else and first in stroked gained approach). Don’t get me wrong, putting is very important. The putting ranks all had respectable placings as well, but I think what the Masters taught was that starting in a good position to attack greens and attack flags goes a very long way into shooting better scores. FYSA: you can also see strokes gained for historical tournaments via https://www.pgatour.com/stats.

Now, I am a little bias as Rory is undoubtedly in my top two of favorite golfers of all time. I think one main thing that anyone can take away from the Masters is the power of a strong mental game. Over the years, Rory has been earmarked and critiqued as a “choker” primarily because of his lack of success in the Majors. While this does carry some water, I think most people forget to take a step back and look at his entire body of work. The man has SIX Race to Dubai championships, THREE FedEx Cups, 29 PGA Tour Wins, now 5 majors, AND the career Grand Slam – something only six players have ever accomplished in the game. The 2025 Masters also forced him to dig extremely deep after the first round in which he double bogeyed two of his last five holes dropping him to level par 72 after day 1 – SEVEN SHOTS off the lead. He only then shot two 66s on Friday and Saturday. To be able to bounce back with such conviction in arguably the most prestigious and anticipated tournament of his lifetime in truly remarkable and a testament to the belief he had in his game. Then in the final round, he was paired with Bryson Dechambeau who was fresh off squashing Rory’s hopes for another Major in the 2024 US Open. That, coupled with the pressure Rory was facing to complete the Grand Slam, truly would test his mental capability of blocking it all out and focusing on his next shot. It looked like a runaway at one point with Rory up four shots on the back nine, but then the unimaginable happened and Rory dunked it into Ray’s Creek on 13 from only 86 yards – a pitch shot the almost any semi-experienced golfer could hit. It was gut-wrenching to watch, just a completely inexplicable golf shot and led to Rory actually being down a shot with only 4 holes left to play. He followed it up with perhaps one of the greatest Masters shots on the 15th hole par 5 that we might ever see. A towering draw from 207 yards with a 7 iron, he hit it to about 6 feet and made birdie to get back to a tie on the leaderboard. The man then did the same on the 17th to go up by one shot with the 18th left to play. A perfect drive, yet a poor wedge shot and a missed putt from about 6 feet led to a playoff with Justin Rose. Rory looked mentally exhausted, but he pummeled perhaps his best drive on the 18th all week, put a wedge to 3 feet, and sank the putt for birdie and the Green Jacket. His reaction really said it all and I think this was completely a personal battle in his mind the entire week which he won. He showed the resolve I think any golfer has to have to play a good round, to get back up after a double or triple bogey, and just keep having belief that the next shot will be your best shot. No player had ever won with four double bogeys in a Masters, until Rory. He truly defeated his demons this week and I think it all had to do with his remarkable resiliency and faith he had walking up and down those rolling Augusta mounds.

All in all, golf is a magnificent game. You can learn so much just by watching and trying to take in what the pros are doing then trying to figure out how to employ those in your own game. The main thing is just constantly trying to improve, trying to get a little better every day regardless of setbacks you might run into. And I think it’s about perspective too. Incorporating those values into your everyday life. Being a better person to those around you and understanding that no matter what you shoot that day, there will be family there to support you. It was motivating watching Rory continually bounce back on Sunday and then also watching his closing speech where he recognized how much his family and team mean to him. I think that is something we can all relate to.