Reflection / Sean Gallagher
Relief in this life can lead to infinite joy in the next
Rory McIlroy dropped to his knees and put his head in his hands after he saw the putt drop into the hole. Relief washed over him like a flood. A weight that had laid heavily on the shoulders of the professional golfer from Northern Ireland for more than a decade and had increased during that time was finally gone.
In sinking that 4-foot putt on the 18th hole—the first hole of a sudden-death playoff—on April 13 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., McIlroy had finally won the club’s famed Masters Tournament after 17 tries.
McIlroy had stormed onto the professional golf scene in his late teenage years more than 15 years ago and soon became one of the world’s best players.
By 2014, he had won three of the four major tournaments in men’s professional golf—Great Britain’s Open Championship, the U.S. Open and the P.G.A. Championship. Only the Masters was lacking to put McIlroy in the rarified air of the five golfers during the past 80 years who won all four tournaments, known as a “career grand slam.”
So, each time he returned to Augusta National for the tournament, the questions would continue. When would he don the famed green jacket worn by Masters winners? Could this golfer, who had won so many tournaments around the world, seal the deal and finally win the Masters?
Many doubted he could do it. In 2011, McIlroy, then 22, had a four-shot lead going into the final round of the tournament, only to shoot an 8-over-par 80, ending the day in a tie for 15th place.
Even with the tournament’s patrons clearly on his side this year, those questions and doubts continued throughout the final round of this year’s tournament. McIlroy led through much of it. Then he scored a double bogey 7 on the par-5 13th hole and a bogey on the 14th hole. Meanwhile England’s Justin Rose made a late charge, birdieing six of the final nine holes in his final round.
Yet, McIlroy bounced back from his previous mistakes to birdie the 17th hole and take a one-shot lead going into the final hole. All he had to do was sink a 5-foot par putt on the 18th hole to win. But the putt slid over the edge of the hole.
So, McIlroy and Rose went to a sudden-death playoff, starting on the 18th hole. Rose parred the hole. Then McIlroy had a 4-foot putt for birdie. After missing a similar-length putt to win minutes earlier, McIlroy made the most of his second chance at victory, sinking the putt and falling to his knees.
“There was no joy in that reaction, it was all relief,” McIlroy said after the tournament. “This is my 17th time here, and I started to wonder if it would ever be my time. I think the last 10 years coming here with the burden of the Grand Slam on my shoulders and trying to achieve that ... there was a lot of pent-up emotion that just came out on that 18th green.”
On this side of eternity, we sometimes feel more relief than joy in the many small and sometimes big victories in daily life. That can happen because we often feel burdened by our own expectations or those of others.
God’s will in our lives can sometimes feel like one more expectation laid on our shoulders. To a certain degree, that’s inescapable in this life.
On this Good Friday, the Church in its worship recalls how our Lord knew that well in his agony in the garden of Gethsemane where he prayed to be relieved of the suffering that lay before him. Yet he resolutely finished his prayer by saying with conviction to his heavenly Father, “Your will be done” (Mt 26:39; Mk 14:36; Lk 22:42).
While seeking to fulfill God’s will for us in our daily lives can sometimes seem like a heavy load of expectations, it’s good for us to remember that God’s will for us will lead us to happiness and fulfillment—in this life and the next—just as it led Christ from the agony of Calvary to the joy of his resurrection.
Relief might at times be the best we can expect in this life. In the life of the eternal wedding fest of the lamb in heaven, we’ll experience infinite joy.
(Sean Gallagher is a reporter for The Criterion.) †