Who won the Masters? Sir Nick Faldo praises Rory McIlroy for US Masters win for second year running

Rory McIlroy won the US Masters for the second year running after a dramatic final round at Augusta - earning praise from golfing great Sir Nick Faldo - whom he joined atop the list of golfing greats from the UK and Ireland with six major titles.

Sir Nick hailed “incredible” McIlroy after the Northern Irishman matched his achievement of successfully defending his Masters title and equalled his six-majors haul, becoming the most successful European of the modern era.

“All credit to him. Incredible. He’s got another major to his name,” Faldo told Sky Sports. “All he needs now is to win another US Open and another Open Championship and then he’ll be a two-time grand slam champion.

“That’s his goal. To get there along with the likes of Jack (Nicklaus) and Tiger (Woods). He’s unique. Rory is the only one out of those guys to go 11 years between wins, and then he’s added another one.”

Also full of praise was two-time Ryder Cup-winning captain Luke Donald, who said: “Tying Seve with 2 green jackets will mean a lot to Rory. He is undoubtedly the best European golfer of all time now. Congratulations.”

Paul McGinley, a Ryder Cup-winning captain and close friend of McIlroy, told Sky Sports: “McIlroy wants to be known as the best European of all time. As much as many of us might think that already, he still didn’t have as many major championships as Nick Faldo, nor Harry Vardon.

“Even though he’s caught Nick now with six, he’s still got Harry Vardon (seven) to catch. There’s always another level, and I think Rory has reset his goals in that regard.”

2026 Masters prize money: Total purse $22.5 million

• 1st — $4,500,000 — Rory McIlroy
• 2nd — $2,430,000 — Scottie Scheffler
• 3rd — $1,530,000 — Tyrrell Hatton, Russell Henley, Justin Rose, Cameron Young ($1,080,000 each)
• 4th — $1,080,000
• 5th — $900,000
• 6th — $810,000
• 7th — $753,750 — Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns ($725,625 each)
• 8th — $697,500
• 9th — $652,500 — Max Homa, Xander Schauffele ($630,000 each)
• 10th — $607,500
• 11th — $562,500 — Jake Knapp
• 12th — $517,500 — Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Patrick Cantlay, Jason Day ($427,500 each)
• 13th — $472,500
• 14th — $427,500
• 15th — $405,000
• 16th — $382,500
• 17th — $360,000
• 18th — $337,500 — Maverick McNealy, Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick ($315,000 each)
• 19th — $315,000
• 20th — $292,500
• 21st — $270,000 — Wyndham Clark, Ludvig Åberg, Keegan Bradley ($252,000 each)
• 22nd — $252,000
• 23rd — $234,000
• 24th — $216,000 — Chris Gotterup, Adam Scott, Sam Stevens, Brian Campbell, Matt McCarty, Michael Brennan ($182,250 each)
• 25th — $198,000
• 26th — $180,000
• 27th — $173,250
• 28th — $166,500
• 29th — $159,750
• 30th — $153,000 — Alex Noren, Harris English, Shane Lowry ($146,250 each)
• 31st — $146,250
• 32nd — $139,500
• 33rd — $132,750 — Tommy Fleetwood, Dustin Johnson, Brian Harman, Ben Griffin, Gary Woodland ($121,500 each)
• 34th — $127,125
• 35th — $121,500
• 36th — $115,875
• 37th — $110,250
• 38th — $105,750 — HaoTong Li, Ryan Gerard, Jon Rahm ($101,250 each)
• 39th — $101,250
• 40th — $96,750
• 41st — $92,250 — Justin Thomas, Kristoffer Reitan, Sepp Straka, Nick Taylor, Jacob Bridgeman ($83,250 each)
• 42nd — $87,750
• 43rd — $83,250
• 44th — $78,750
• 45th — $74,250
• 46th — $69,750 — Sungjae Im
• 47th — $65,250 — Si Woo Kim
• 48th — $61,650 — Aaron Rai
• 49th — $58,500 — Marco Penge, Corey Conners ($57,600 each)
• 50th — $56,700
• 51st — $55,350 — Kurt Kitayama
• 52nd — $54,000 — Sergio Garcia
• 53rd — $53,100 — Rasmus Hojgaard
• 54th — $52,200 — Charl Schwartzel

With his one-shot victory over world number one Scottie Scheffler taking his career tally to six, McIlroy is already targeting more majors after becoming only the fourth man to win back-to-back Masters titles.

However, having waited a decade between his fourth and fifth, which secured the career grand slam a year ago, the desire for more still drives the 36-year-old. “It took me 10 years to win my fifth major, and then my sixth one’s come pretty soon after it,” he said. “I’m not putting a number on it but I certainly don’t want to stop here.”