“It’s a long way back mentally for him…This is on Rory, on dropping his concentration, and that’s not what great champions do.” – Paul McGinley on McIlroy’s chip into the water on 15
“This was the most surprising shot of the day, really the shock of the day…Rory is a once in a generation golfer and so I’m not going to sit here and say he blew himself out of the golf tournament.” – Brandel Chamblee on Rory McIlroy
“This was as good a Rory as we’ve seen. In fact, I would say the first 14 holes, the best we’ve seen him play all year and he’s got to take the positives out of it.” – McGinley on McIlroy’s first 14 holes
“His ability to go out there and just clinically work his way around the course, that’s why it looks so easy, because he just knows where he’s going. He is like a master chess player.” – Chamblee on Scottie Scheffler
STAMFORD, Conn. – April 10, 2025 – Golf Central Live From The Masters continued its comprehensive coverage surrounding the 2025 Masters with post-round reaction and analysis on GOLF Channel following the First Round.
Rich Lerner, Brandel Chamblee, and Paul McGinley anchored Live From The Masters post-round coverage on GOLF Channel.
GOLF Channel’s studio coverage continues Friday at 8 a.m. ET with Golf Central Live From the Masters, with primetime coverage on GOLF Channel airing immediately following play. Following are notes and quotes from today’s coverage.
The Masters – First Round Leaderboard
| Player | Total |
| Justin Rose | -7 |
| Scottie Scheffler | -4 |
| Ludvig Åberg | -4 |
| Corey Conners | -4 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | -3 |
| Tyrell Hatton | -3 |
On First Round
Lerner on the conditions in the First Round: “Weather was ideal, golf course challenging. By midafternoon with those firm greens and frisky winds, players were in a defensive posture. The premium on thoughtful consideration on just about every shot.”
McGinley: “I thought the scoring was what we expected, and the conditions were going to be good. They hold the scoring around here, they don’t open the flood gates on day one for low scoring, we knew that…Some difficult pin positions. Greens had a little bit of bounce in them, that’s ok. They’ll open the gates a little bit as we get towards Sunday.”
Chamblee: “I hesitate to say it was an ideal day for scoring, because some of the greens out there were quite hard…but from a weather-standpoint, it was a Goldilocks day – it wasn’t too hot, wasn’t too cold. Wind wasn’t too strong, wasn’t too light, give you something to sort of buffer up against out there…But in general just summing up this day, Freddie Couples never seems to age, Justin Rose always seems to lead, Scottie Scheffler is dangerously right there, and Ludvig Åberg one year down the road is right back where he ended up last year tied for second. And then of course Rory McIlroy with back-to-back major rounds with major mistakes.”
McGinley on today’s leaders: “It’s a golf course that’s very, very difficult to chase on and generally the winner comes from the top five after the first round.”
On Rory McIlroy (E, T-27th)
Lerner: “Story of the day. He was four-under par standing over a six-footer for birdie at 14, then disaster at 15…Double-bogey, made another at 16. Devastating? No. Disappointing? No question…A lot of people buzzing about Rory. As good as he is, you still had this uneasy feeling that he could mess this up…It appeared to be airtight, but then the air just came out of it.”
McGinley: “It’s a long way back mentally for him. Nobody will be beating himself up more than himself after that. He played so well for the first 14 holes and to come out with only a 72 will be gut-wrenching for him.”
Chamblee on McIlroy’s shot into the water on 15: “This was the most surprising shot of the day. With all the experience, all the improvements he’s made to the short game. To not leave that some 15-, 20-feet above the hole and then try to make your four. To make a mistake like that, to give two shots away just like that, as hard as they are to find, was really the shock of the day.”
McGinley on McIlroy waiting for Akshay Bhatia to play up and the group ahead to tee off before hitting his chip shot on 15: “I think he got distracted…It took a long time for him to play that pitch shot…I just think those two incidents, for such a quick player who wants to get on with it, had to wait nearly five minutes to play that chip shot and I think he dropped concentration and I think he got distracted because this was not a good chip shot…It wasn’t thought through properly and it was a drop in concentration. It’s not on Akshay and it’s not on the guys walking off 16. This is on Rory, on dropping his concentration, and that’s not what great champions do.”
Chamblee on McIlroy’s post-round thoughts tonight: “When the dust settles and he gets home tonight, yeah, he’ll be hugely disappointed…He knows history as well as we do. This is no knock on Justin Rose, he played a beautiful round of golf, he shot seven under par. Five now first round leads here at Augusta, he’s averaged 67. The next round, he’s averaged 74 and the previous four he hasn’t won any of them. Somewhere, Rory is going to get home tonight and go, ‘The lead is four-under and I’m four back.’”
Lerner in response to Chamblee: “Four back of Scheffler.”
Chamblee: “Fine, but Rory has come from six- and eight-back before and won tournaments in one round of golf. So, as we sit here and talk about, ‘It was a big mistake and it was mindboggling,’ lest we forget how good he was playing right up until 15…Rory is a once in a generation golfer and so I’m not going to sit here and say he blew himself out of the golf tournament. He shot even par, and I promise you he sits there and he says, ‘I’m four back, and I got all the time in the world to get this done.’”
McGinley: “The first 14 holes he was brilliant. The way he drove the ball, the way he played, how controlled he was. Solid, everything looked brilliant and the old saying, ‘Don’t follow a bad shot with a mistake,’ and that’s what he did. Seventeen was absolutely a legacy of what happened on 15...He’s got to take the positives out of this. This was as good a Rory as we’ve seen. In fact, I would say the first 14 holes, the best we’ve seen him play all year and he’s got to take the positives out of it.”
On Scottie Scheffler (-4, T-2nd)
McGinley: “I thought he was absolutely awesome today, and he putted really well again. He’s very formidable. It’s going to take something else to beat him…I was so impressed with him today. It was almost playing by computer as to where you need to hit it around here, and if you were going to miss it, he was going to miss it in the right spot…When Scottie Scheffler is putting well, considering how well he hits the ball, that’s a pretty formidable place that he’s going to be.”
Chamblee: “People will remember the long putt at four, the long putt at 16 and they’ll think, ‘He probably got a lot out of that round.’ And I would just argue the contrary, I don’t know that he got a lot out of this round…His best iron shots, in terms of how close they were to the hole, he got nothing out of them. But his ability to go out there and just clinically work his way around the course, that’s why it looks so easy, because he just knows where he’s going. He is like a master chess player.”
On Justin Rose (-7, 1st)
Lerner: “No surprise, in many ways, given how good he has been at The Masters. The Thursday front-runner, 44-years-old.”
Chamblee: “Borderline Hall of Fame player. If it’s true that it’s important to get off to a good start in any particular round, maybe the same could be said about a love affair at any particular golf course. The first round of golf that he ever played here competitively, he shot a 67 and had the lead…On paper, he’s ideally suited for this place but he hasn’t been able to carry on with those first round leads. Of course he’s played some great golf here.”
McGinley: “Watching the golf, you didn’t think that Justin Rose was outplaying everybody else, but he was outscoring them…It was good, solid golf, but it wasn’t the quality of golf that we saw from Scheffler or indeed from Rory and even Bryson then who came strong at the end…It’s going to be a big ask for him to continue on for these next few days. Having said that, he seems to rise to the occasion in these bigger events. As he’s gotten older, he’s become a little bit less consistent…but when he does get in contention, when he does get a bite at it, he finishes it off with a good finish.”
Rose on his strategy to Todd Lewis post-round: “This is my 20th Masters, knowing this golf course pretty well. Kind of looking at it and going, ‘Ok, this is a respect hole, there’s a few opportunities here, there,’ and then trying to just chunk it like that…I kind of got my momentum going just nicely at the right times in my round….At the end of the day, experience is great but you have to execute.”
--NBC SPORTS--
