Jim Nantz made the iconic call last year as Rory McIlroy dropped to his knees on the 18th green at Augusta National: “The long journey is over! McIlroy has his masterpiece!”
Nantz was referring to the Career Grand Slam, of course, but now McIlroy has a masterpiece of artwork to commemorate the occasion, and the making of it has gone viral.
In the wake of his Masters victory, McIlroy commissioned artist Keegan Hall to draw a portrait of the emotional scene. Hall spent six months on the project, estimating he spent anywhere from 600 to 800-plus hours on the pencil drawing.
Rory McIlroy commissioned this pencil drawing after last year’s Masters Tournament.
The artist (@KeeganHall) provided context on Reddit:
• Spent 6+ months working on it
• Estimates 600-800+ total hours
• Worked on it 6-7 days each week
• Uses a Pentel Graphgear mechanical… pic.twitter.com/EGCC5ydbHz— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) April 8, 2026
Hall, a lefty, uses a Pentel GraphGear mechanical pencil, noting on Reddit that it takes too long to sharpen a regular pencil.
“The original is smaller than 30×22 so each face is like the quarter of the size of a fingernail,” wrote Hall. “It’s truly challenging to pack this much detail into such a small area.”
Hall adds his own face to the crowd in most of his pieces, and he did that for this one too. Brad Faxon said on a recent Fried Egg podcast that McIlroy gifted the drawing to Augusta National and sent 300 prints to the club for members.
Over 6 months.
Hundreds of faces.
One of the most challenging drawings I’ve ever done.Here’s the full time-lapse video of my drawing of @McIlroyRory winning @TheMasters. #TheMasterspic.twitter.com/8Cw9QT5C13
— Keegan Hall (@KeeganHall) April 8, 2026
“I have a very disciplined schedule that I follow,” Hall said on Reddit. “Typically up and working by 5am and try to get a solid 5 hours to uninterrupted work in. Then, I’ll take a break for exercise (I’ll either go play basketball, go for a 5+ mile run, hit golf balls in the sim, etc. Then lunch and back to work for 4+ hours and typically end the day will biz related work. But for a piece of this size and scale, I know it will take a long time to complete so my goal is to make progress every day, often 6-7 days a week.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Pencil drawing of Rory McIlroy’s 2025 Masters win goes viral
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