Why Rory McIlroy’s 7-iron disappeared after winning the Masters

In this week 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AmRory McIlroy is making his first PGA Tour start of the year. But in his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday, it was an anecdote from McIlroy’s 2025 Masters victory that caught this writer’s attention.

It turns out that when McIlroy arrived home the Monday after the Masters, a “pretty important club” was unexpectedly missing from his golf bag. The culprit may be more surprising: Augusta National.

Here’s what you need to know.

Rory shares the missing history of the Masters club ahead of his PGA Tour debut

This week is not the first tournament of the season for McIlroy. As usual, world number 2 began his year on the DP world tour, playing two tours in the Middle East.

In his first start, he earned a T3 at the Dubai Invitational. But now McIlroy is ready to get his own PGA Tour the season is underway and he’s doing it at the same place he debuted last year: Pebble Beach.

That debut resulted in a win and sparked a run that included wins at the Players Championship and, shortly after, the Masters.

McIlroy’s Masters victory was memorable for many reasons, not least the fact that with it McIlroy became only the sixth golfer to complete the career Grand Slam.

But when McIlroy arrived home after his dramatic victory, he looked in his golf bag only to discover that one of the 14 clubs that gave him victory was missing.

“I didn’t realize it, but I flew back on Monday and I basically haven’t seen my golf clubs since the playoff and I saw that my 7-iron was missing,” McIlroy said Tuesday at Pebble Beach. “I thought this is a pretty important club.”

So where was his trusty Masters-winning 7-iron? Turns out it never made it to the plane.

Augusta National has a tradition of keeping a clubhouse quintessential from memorable Masters victories to display in the clubhouse. Given the historic nature of McIlroy’s victory, club officials wanted something to commemorate the tournament.

McIlroy’s manager, Sean O’Flaherty, obliged, giving Augusta the 7-iron McIlroy used during his victory.

One problem: he forgot to tell Rory,

“Sean had already given it to the club, he just didn’t tell me,” McIlroy revealed on Tuesday. “That’s good, I’ll get a new 7-iron. If there was one I’d give the club, it’d probably be that one.”

McIlroy confirmed he had to get a replacement for his next start, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where he and Shane Lowry finished T12 a year after winning. In his next tournament, McIlroy earned a T7 finish at the Truist Championship.

McIlroy wants to ‘move on’ from Masters win

McIlroy’s 2025 Masters triumph was his third of the season at that point. Although he collected four more top-10 finishes, he did not win another Tour event in 2025.

The five-time major champion admitted this at his Pebble Beach press conference.

“If I had one criticism of myself last year, it’s that I didn’t bring the consistency that I probably would have liked to post the Masters,” he said on Tuesday.

And improving his stamina, he argued, is the only chance he has to replace it World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in the world ranking.

“I think anybody who wants to catch Scottie (Scheffler) or get anywhere close is going to have to consistently bring that kind of game week in and week out like he does,” McIlroy said. “He’s really the first one since Tiger to do that.”

While Rory admitted he was “going to Jim Nantz’s house later” to do an interview with his Masters green jacket, he said he is finally ready to move on from his historic win and focus on racking up more achievements this year.

“It’s done, it’s great, I’m glad it’s over in a way,” McIlroy said of his 2025 Masters win, “but I want to move on and I’ve got more goals and there’s more things I want to try to accomplish and achieve.”

Step no. 1? Defending his title this week at Pebble Beach.