AUGUSTA, Ga. — Since this year’s Masters began, Rory McIlroy talked about playing aggressively. Playing like he has a green jacket, because, well, he does already have one. Turns out, it’s a little easier to have success here when you’ve got a spot in the champions’ locker room forever. 

That attitude was the difference in the final round as McIlroy defended his title at the Masters, becoming just the fourth person in history to go back-to-back at Augusta National. 

The chairman of the club put McIlroy’s green jacket back through his arms Sunday. Members of his home club in Northern Ireland cheered. Some members of the media did the same. Why not? McIlroy has been the biggest global star in the game for more than a decade. 

McIlroy, who has now won six major championships, tied Nick Faldo for the most major victories by a European with his win. And he is, for now, the greatest of his generation — as we await what Scottie Scheffler’s final major total may be. 

McIlroy will be in a class of his own by the time we get to the PGA Championship in a month’s time. He’s chasing ghosts. McIlroy’s next major victory will tie him with the likes of Arnold Palmer, Gene Sarazen, and Bobby Jones. 

He’s in the pantheon now. 

“It took me 10 years to win my fifth major, and then my sixth one’s come pretty soon after it. I’m not putting a number on (how many I can win), but I certainly don’t want to stop here,” McIlroy said. 

McIlroy’s experience around Augusta National, both on the mental side and with the kinds of shots he hit, was the key through Sunday. It’s never easy. It can’t be. That’s why so many in the game often go their entire careers without doing it. McIlroy admitted he hadn’t really played any other golf course the last two or three weeks leading into the Masters and was able to shoot scores and practice shots around greens and knew — perhaps most importantly on a week when he was second-to-last in driving accuracy amongst those who made the cut — where to miss. 

“I joked last week and going into this week that this place feels like my home course,” McIlroy said. 

Although he opened with a birdie on No. 3, he gave it all back and then some with a double bogey on the par-3 4th. He added another bogey on No. 6 before rallying with back-to-back birdies on Nos. 7 and 8. He gave himself a talking-to on the seventh tee after finally roasting a tee shot to the centre of the fairway, which set him up for the final stretch. He said if he didn’t make those birdies he may have had to press a little bit on the back nine. 

McIlroy hit a nifty, sawed-off 9-iron off the tee on No. 12 to just a few feet and converted the birdie there before adding one more on No. 13. On the iconic par 5, McIlroy was in a gully on the left side of the green but took out a putter from off the green and rolled it up to 11 feet. Smart. Stylish. Impressive. 

“I think staying aggressive and staying committed, especially on those two holes, definitely served me this week,” McIlroy said. 

He had to hold off a hard-charging Scottie Scheffler, who shot a 4-under Sunday and had a strong chance to push McIlroy more until a few late misses left him one shot short. 

McIlroy knows how hard it is to compete against — and defeat — Scheffler, the game’s best player. He called him “relentless” earlier this year. 

Scheffler finished at 11 under for the week and in solo second. This was just the third major championship since 1986 in which the top two finishes were the first and second-ranked players in the Official World Golf Ranking. 

“I’ve competed against him for a long time, and you don’t win the amount of tournaments that he’s won out here without being pretty resilient,” Scheffler said of McIlroy. “Having a six-shot lead at Augusta is never easy, and losing that is obviously something difficult. But at the end of the day, when you tee it up here on Sunday, (McIlroy is) tied for the lead to start the day and had a solid round and did what he needed to do in order to get it done.”

Four different players led at one time Sunday, and at one point, McIlroy was three shots back. He held steady through the final stretch of holes before it almost all came undone on the 72nd hole. McIlroy blasted his tee shot way right and at the base of a tree. But it was just right enough that he had a window to carve his approach up the 10th fairway and into the front bunker. McIlroy blasted it out to about 25 feet and nestled it up to just inches for a closing bogey. Good enough. 

“I don’t make it easy. I used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots. No, it’s just… It’s hard. It’s hard to win golf tournaments. Yeah, especially around here,” McIlroy said. 

After last year, McIlroy continued to be asked about what’s next. What happens when you achieve such a big dream — a dream that some, McIlroy said, might have been deemed outlandish. 

McIlroy said Sunday that he thought winning the grand slam a year ago was the destination. And then he realized it wasn’t. This win, he said with a glint in his eye, was another stop on his journey. 

When you dream so big, it’s just as fun to achieve them all over again. 

“It still fits,” said McIlroy of his Pantone 342 C sport coat. 

And now, Holywood has its sequel.