One of the best methods by which brands and tours and broadcasters can get golf fans to lean all the way in is very simple. Give us great golfers breaking down everything. Not just the good shots. Not just the ones that fall into the jar. Everything.
We want to hear the way to play a certain hole. The thoughts standing over a specific shot with a specific lie. The merry-go-round of emotions kicking through their head during tense moments. It’s not just, “What does this win mean?” It’s How the hell did you do it… but almost not do it?
Golf’s content-making engineers aren’t obligated to do any of this, though the smartest ones do. They break ever so slightly from the status quo with the thought of, What are fans thirsty for? And they deliver things like the Masters’ Every Hole With series, which published its second installment Friday, with defending champ Rory McIlroy.
Augusta National debuted this series in 2025 with Scottie Scheffler breaking down every hole at the famed course. It’s a comfy play on the “Every Hole At” series Golf Digest has created over the years, outlining everything you should know, holes 1 through 18, at famous courses across the world.
Where McIlroy’s video differed from Scheffler’s is McIlroy ended up breaking down every hole through the lens of his 2025 final round, rather than just explaining the holes more generally. That’ll happen in the wake of your greatest career achievement. It also makes sense for Scheffler to be a bit more general in his descriptions, considering he had won the tournament twice in the last three years, in dominant fashion no less. He’s played twice as many meaningful Masters holes than McIlroy in recent years but never seemed to battle the intensity of that course in win-or-lose moments.
Through that hyper-specific treatment from McIlroy, you learn a lot here on the eve of Masters week. You learn simple things, like why he ultimately chose driver on the 3rd hole rather than lay up like Bryson DeChambeau. It wasn’t that he needed birdie. It’s that he felt more comfortable with the finicky second shot after a driver than fuller wedge shot after a lay-up.
You learn what pin locations, year after year, freak McIlroy out a bit, underlining the fact that — after enough Masters starts — scar tissue exists everywhere on that course, in even the slightest ways. You learn about how perfectly placed many of Augusta National’s bunkers are — on 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8, for example, for the game’s longest players.
You learn which single shot — more than an hour into the final round — finally allowed McIlroy to settle in and feel more comfortable. That it all comes with exclusive, gorgeous drone footage is icing on the cake.
You know there are special walks on that course — from the clubhouse to the 1st, from the 17th green to the 18th tee, or 16 tee to 16 green. But you learn which one McIlroy thinks is second-loudest, behind the walk to the 1st tee.
These revelations are not earth-shattering, but they unveil a bit more about how specific players see specific portions of this very specific place. The same place everyone tries to figure out a bit more each year. It’s the most fun version of our annual fact-finding mission on the endless Masters quest.
By watching McIlroy’s round, shot-for-shot, and hearing what he wanted to do with each swing, only to — at times — be at the mercy of gravity, mounds and grass, was a reminder of the luck involved in this sport. McIlroy’s ball careened off tree branches toward greens and bounced off mounds toward hazards, all while he made very good swings during this lifetime crescendo.
The biggest moment, perhaps, came on the 15th hole, when he pulled 7-iron. But you learn that a move DeChambeau made caused McIlroy to do things differently than he intended. It all brings us in a bit closer to McIlroy himself, to his triumph. It’s hard to overdo it this time of year, on the Masters content. Especially when it’s this good.
