Written by Sean Martin
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Leading by three strokes, Rory McIlroy was able to enjoy one of golf’s most spectacular walks. As a student of the game’s history, he could appreciate each step’s significance.
He started to stroll along the famed stretch of California coastline called the “most felicitous meeting of land and sea” while his second shot was still airborne. He had removed his hat before both his playing competitors had hit their shots to the final green.
McIlroy, 35, had won at one of golf’s most historic venues and done so in a dominating fashion that removed any stress from the final hole.
“There’s a few what I would call ‘cathedrals of golf,’” McIlroy said Sunday after his victory in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “Here, Augusta, St. Andrews, obviously. Maybe a few more you could add in there. And I had a big fat zero on all of those going in here. So to knock one off of Pebble is very cool.”
That stress-free par on Pebble Beach’s famous par-5 finisher – McIlroy hit iron off the tee and laid up with his second shot – gave him a 72-hole score of 21-under 267 (66-70-65-66), good for a two-shot victory over his good friend Shane Lowry. Lucas Glover and Justin Rose tied for third, three shots back.
Rory McIlroy taps in for par to secure win at AT&T Pebble Beach
This was the 27th victory of McIlroy’s PGA TOUR career, and the second in his past three worldwide starts. He closed 2024 with a win at the DP World Tour Championship, then started this year by finishing T3 again in Dubai.
The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was McIlroy’s second event of the year and PGA TOUR debut for 2025. Before the tournament, he discussed his appreciation for Scottie Scheffler’s success in 2024 and Scheffler’s seemingly unmatched propensity for shooting bogey-free rounds. McIlroy is arguably the most successful player of his generation but even he admitted that it was a skill that he would like to emulate more often in the new year.
“When one of your peers has the year he had last year, and honestly the year like he had in ‘23 as well, you start to take notice of what is he doing and what has … helped him separate himself from the rest of the field,” McIlroy said. His analysis of Scheffler’s game inspired McIlroy to be more conservative with club selection off the tee and targets into the greens.
“There’s impulses that I have on the golf course that it looks like Scottie doesn’t have,” the famously-aggressive McIlroy said with a smile. McIlroy also shored up his short game, an underrated contributor to Scheffler’s success.
McIlroy debuted a new model of golf ball this week, as well, one that flies slightly lower to give him more control on his approach shots, then displayed its benefits in a first-round 66 that featured an ace from 119 yards that flew directly into the hole. McIlroy almost holed another wedge shot on his final hole Thursday, as well. He said that his increased confidence with his wedges allows him to heed the advice of sports psychologist Bob Rotella and “take dead aim” with his scoring clubs while playing it safer with longer irons.
McIlroy shot 70 in the second round and then thrived when Pebble Beach displayed some of the nasty winter weather that it is known for. His 65 in the wind and rain tied Lowry for the low round of the day. McIlroy called it a “really good poor-weather performance” and his performance on Pebble Beach’s difficult seaside stretch – he played Nos. 6-10 in 1 under par – displayed his ability to control his ball in the wind.
“As long as you managed it and sort of really controlled the flight of your golf ball, … there was a score out there,” McIlroy said after the third round.
He started Sunday tied with Lowry and a stroke behind leader Sepp Straka. McIlroy and Straka were tied after Straka’s bogey at the opening hole, however, and McIlroy took the lead with a hard-earned birdie at the par-5 second, one that was a credit to his improved wedge play. He pulled his tee shot into a bunker left of the fairway and hit his second shot into the rough short and left of the hole. He hit his 50-yard pitch to 3 feet, however.
After three-putting the par-5 sixth for par, McIlroy holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-3 seventh hole. He gave it back with a bogey at the next hole, however, after his approach missed left of the green. That was his only bogey of the weekend.
Tied at the turn with Straka and Tom Kim, McIlroy birdied Nos. 10 and 12 to take a two-stroke lead with six holes remaining. He pulled three ahead with his eagle at the par-5 14th and led by four after a birdie at the next hole. The 15th hole was one example of McIlroy’s new, Scheffler-inspired strategy. After hitting a 340-yard drive on the previous hole, he could have used that club again to push his ball up near the putting surface of the 388-yard 15th. He laid back, instead, and hit a 104-yard wedge shot to 4 feet.
Lowry birdied the next hole but missed an 8-foot birdie putt at 17 that would have pulled him within two strokes. It was just enough to give McIlroy a comfortable margin on the final hole.
“He’s just so in control,” Lowry said. “He drives the ball incredibly well, he always does. He was just in control of his ball today and he putted nicely. It all came together. I think like he said, if he cuts out his mistakes with his irons, he’s very hard to beat.”
Rory McIlroy’s Round 4 winning highlights from AT&T Pebble Beach
This victory gave McIlroy an encouraging start to 2025 after a year that was defined by heartbreak. McIlroy won four times worldwide in 2024, and capped the year by winning his sixth Race to Dubai, but he also finished second four times, often in heartbreaking fashion.
There was the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, where McIlroy missed short par putts on two of the final three holes, and also the Irish Open at Royal County Down in his native Northern Ireland. McIlroy led by four shots early in the Irish Open’s final round, but Rasmus Højgaard birdied four of the final five holes to sprint past the home favorite. McIlroy bogeyed the second-to-last hole, then narrowly missed an eagle putt on the final hole that would have forced a playoff.
McIlroy also finished fifth in the Olympics, missing his first medal by two strokes. He double-bogeyed the 15th hole after hitting a wedge shot into the water, then said, “I feel like I’ve been golf’s ‘Nearly Man’ for the last three years.”
Sunday was a test of some of those learnings from last year. He talked about “being in a different place mentally” and using breathing exercises to slow down during stressful moments.
“I think the one thing that I did today really well is I didn’t get too flustered,” McIlroy said Sunday. “It certainly feels a little more boring to me. It might look a little bit more boring on the golf course, but it’s definitely more effective. That’s something that I’m consciously trying to do a little bit better of a job at, and today was a good test and I was able to come through it pretty well.”
Rory McIlroy’s interview after winning AT&T Pebble Beach
McIlroy’s performances at the other courses that he listed in the game’s upper echelon had been defined by disappointment. He’s been runner-up three times in the DP World Tour’s Dunhill Links at St. Andrews and losing The Open Championship in 2022 there ranks among the hardest losses of his career. Conquering Augusta National is the lone accomplishment standing between McIlroy and the career Grand Slam.
This was just McIlroy’s fifth competitive appearance at Pebble Beach, though. He’d missed the cut twice (2010 U.S. Open, 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am). He finished T9 in the 2019 U.S. Open here, then didn’t return until last year, when he finished T66 in the 80-man field. He was a member of the winning pro-am team, however, an accomplishment that got his name on the wall of champions behind the first tee. It is more satisfying to be included for his own accomplishment, however.
“There’s some venues in our game that just mean a little bit more than others,” he said. And now, McIlroy is a winner at one.
Sean Martin is a senior editor for the PGA TOUR. He is a 2004 graduate of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. Attending a small school gave him a heart for the underdog, which is why he enjoys telling stories of golf’s lesser-known players. Follow Sean Martin on Twitter.
