Vote: The UK’s best sporting moments – and where Rory McIlroy ranks

Rory McIlroy’s epic Masters victory was one of the most remarkable moments in the history of British sport but where does it rank among the other contenders?

Telegraph Sport’s panel of experts have their say – and you can vote for your favourite.

England win the 1966 World Cup

What happened on 30 July 1966 has never been bettered in English sporting history. And it has only grown in significance in the decades since.

When Alf Ramsey’s side won the World Cup on home soil, at the time it felt like the start of something. Finally, the country that had invented the game was taking a rightful place at its summit. Football had come home: we were taking back control. But since, as more than a dozen iterations have failed to match the achievement of Bobby Moore and his magnificent XI, the win has come to be seen ever more as admonition rather than inspiration. Thirty years of hurt stretching out to 40, 50 and now 60: with each failure to match it, the meaning of that victory has become ever more potent. Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick, Moore’s brilliance, Bobby Charlton’s control: in retrospect they each look ever better. This was the event that, never mind the goals, even the television commentary is woven into the fabric of collective history.

Sadly, of the boys of that glorious summer, only Hurst remains. The question is whether the last of the few will ever see his accomplishment matched by a bunch of Englishmen. On that July day in 1966, they knew they had done something special. But none could have had the slightest inkling as they celebrated lifting the Jules Rimet trophy that its meaning would stretch on and on and on.

Immortality for Rory

Truly one of the greatest moments in all sport, let alone golf. And what a way to do it - showing cojones of steel in a sudden death play-off, after a round of unimaginable tension in which McIlroy mixed unspeakable errors with outrageous shot-making. The Northern Irishman has more than earned his place on the Mt Rushmore of golf.

It speaks volumes that the vast majority of the crowds at Augusta on Sunday (not to mention the millions of fans glued to their TV screens around the world) were pulling for him, rather than his American rival and final round playing partner Bryson DeChambeau. Same in the play-off against Justin Rose. And that is no slight on the Englishman who played magnificently, and was the consummate sportsman in defeat. The reason is simple. We all knew what it meant. We had all been on that journey with him. From 2011, when he blew a four-shot lead in the final round, this achievement was, as McIlroy said afterwards, “14 years in the making”, the last 11 of which he also had to deal with the added pressure of knowing that victory would complete the career grand slam. McIlroy has done it now. No one can take that away from him.

Andy Murray wins Wimbledon

Andy Murray might not have stacked up the trophies at the same rate as the three giants who shared his timeline – Messrs Federer, Nadal and Djokovic – but in one way at least he outdid them.

Nobody but Murray – and now, perhaps, McIlroy – could have understood the sort of pressure he defied when becoming the first British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years.

Delivered in 2013, this unforgettable title run began with Murray’s health and fitness in some doubt, after he had skipped the French Open on account of back trouble. But he gained momentum and confidence through the fortnight, while Nadal and Federer both made early exits.

After a narrow squeak against Fernando Verdasco in the quarter-finals, Murray had to take down Djokovic in the final. Amazingly, he did so in straight sets, although the see-sawing final game had echoes of McIlroy’s 18th-hole brinkmanship. Afterwards, he admitted that he had been suffering from cramp. Had Djokovic broken his serve at the last … well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

England win 2003 Rugby World Cup

The 2003 Rugby World Cup win is an achievement which looks more impressive with the passing of time, given that in the five World Cups since then no northern hemisphere side have managed to emulate that triumph in Sydney. Like all of the candidates on this list, it required supporters being put through the wringer. Not only because England needed extra-time to defeat Australia in the final – no one talks about the scrum penalty against England to tee up Elton Flatley’s match-tying penalty at the end of 80 minutes, do they – but also the amount of scares leading up to that.

Like McIlroy, destiny had weighed heavily on that England side for years after a run of their own Grand Slam blunders in the Six Nations. They cracked it in 2003, then won in New Zealand and Australia that summer (a bit like winning the Players Championship before the big major, right Rory), and returned to Australia for the World Cup as justified favourites and the world’s best side.

Then came the jitters. Drawing 6-6 at half-time with South Africa, before winning 25-6. Trailing 20-22 against Samoa after 63 minutes, but recovering to triumph 35-22. Struggling against Wales in the quarter-final before being bailed out by Jonny Wilkinson’s boot – scoring 23 points – to win 28-17. England battled through each of those moments to end up in the final and, well, you know the rest.

The build-up to the winning dropped goal was replicated on the playing fields at schools and clubs for years afterwards: Matt Dawson’s dummy and snipe, Martin Johnson carrying up, Dawson with his hands outstretched goading the Australian defence before passing back to Wilkinson. No one remembers his three missed attempts before that. No need to. A last-minute dropped goal in extra-time to win a World Cup? It still feels like a glorious fairy tale.

England’s 2005 Ashes glory

A series that seemed to write its own legend in real time. Even the build-up promised a classic: Australia had a strong claim to being the greatest Test team of all time. England had not won the urn in 18 years, but had a new dynamism.

A pulsating opening morning at Lord’s, when Steve Harmison drew blood from Ricky Ponting, suggested that England could do to Australia what they had done to West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa in the past year. England’s subsequent collapse to 21-5, setting Australia on their way to a crushing 239-run win, suggested that England could not.

Thereafter, English skill and a little serendipity combined to produce a contest for the ages. England were abetted by Glenn McGrath stepping on a ball just before the second Test, and Ponting’s ill-advised decision to bowl first with a weakened attack. But England capitalised magnificently. The first day at Edgbaston, when England scored 407 in under 80 overs – unimaginable at the time – set the template for the thrilling approach with the bat. With the ball, England had arguably their finest ever pace attack: Matthew Hoggard’s swing, Steve Harmison’s brawn, Andrew Flintoff’s aura and Simon Jones’s reverse swing working in concert.

Yet, all the while, England had to contend with Shane Warne: he snared 40 wickets, to go with 249 runs. But, for all his brilliance, Warne would come to rue one moment on the very final day, when he dropped Kevin Pietersen at slip. Pietersen had 15; emboldened, he produced a dazzling assault – slog-sweeping Warne, and repeatedly hooking Brett Lee over the ropes – to ensure that the Ashes were England’s once again. England had not just defeated Australia; they had defeated an aura.

Lionesses win Euros on home soil

In 2022, England Women achieved what no national football side had managed since 1966, winning a major trophy. It was a historic and euphoric night at a sold-out Wembley Stadium, immortalised by images of match-winner Chloe Kelly celebrating with her shirt off and the team’s invasion of the press conference. It was 50 years after the team’s first international women’s match, the sport had been effectively banned for the half-century preceding that. But Sarina Wiegman’s side defied the odds and, in Ella Toone’s words, ensured football had “come home”. The Lionesses took it upon themselves the next day to demand equal access from the government for girls to football, to ensure their legacy would extend beyond the trophy cabinet.

London 2012 – Super Saturday

Across 13 years and three Olympic Games since London 2012, Britain have won three Olympic gold medals in athletics. That they achieved that same tally in just 44 magical minutes inside London’s Olympic Stadium underlines the enormity of that Super Saturday in August.

It was the crowning night of the greatest 17 days in this country’s sporting history, with Sir Mo Farah, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford capping a day that had earlier also produced three gold medals in rowing and cycling.

One vivid personal recollection was travelling back from the stadium in Stratford with a group of sports journalists that included James Lawton, the former chief sports writer of the Independent and a legendary Fleet Street figure. He had been at Wembley when England won the World Cup and was asked where what we had just witnessed ranked among the best British sporting occasions. Lawton had just co-written Sir Bobby Charlton’s autobiography and, as the only one among us who had even been born when England triumphed in 1966, I had somehow expected him to explain why that was still the greatest day. But he did not hesitate. “This was even better,” he said, before writing a column the next day headlined ‘The Finest Night in British Sport’.

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