Rory McIlroy dropped his 9-iron at the top of his follow-through on hole 10 at Augusta National. His feedback loop was telling him: poor swing. And yet, the ball flew right at the pin and stuck. He drained the putt for birdie.

Then he dumped an 80-yard wedge into Rae’s Creek, missing his target by 25 yards. Pros don’t hit shots like that—unless something sabotages their mind. He could hit 100 balls on the practice range and never come close to a shot that poorly struck. Which can only mean one thing: that one of the best players in the world is, in fact, human.

At times of duress—emotion, anxiety, pressure—the mind can disconnect from kinetic brilliance.

But Rory came back. He birdied the first playoff hole to win the Masters and collapsed, prostrate, on the 18th green, weeping like a prisoner released from eleven years of solitary confinement.

Cheers to Rory. I’m happy for him.

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The Masters broadcast is a cornucopia of imagery—but also of sound. Carolina Wrens and Northern Cardinals chirp more eloquently than the hushed clichés of Jim Nantz and Dottie Pepper. Even silence sounds different on Sunday at Augusta.

And then there are the cheers.
A ringing in the ears of the victor.
Salt in the wound of the nearly great.

What would it be like to hear a ringing of glory in the amphitheater of our minds—just once?

Watching Rory crumple onto the green, overcome with emotion, I thought: everyone should experience this at least once. Everyone should know what it’s like to hear cheers that bring them to their knees. The world would be a better place.

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Somehow, nature understands this.

Robins, song sparrows, and red-winged blackbirds offer their own dawn chorus. The cheering begins again this time of year, as birds salute the azure sky and the gentle sun. A world once pale is now green, freckled with jaunty daffodils and pastel tulips.

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Perhaps the finest cheers of all come in springtime:

A ringing in my ears from hearing
too many of the wrong things
surrounds my head some days
like a helmet, and yet I hear the birds
singing: the song sparrow by the water,
the mockingbird, whose song so beautiful
flings him into the air.

Song comes from a source unseen
as if from a stirring leaf, but I know
the note before I see the bird.
It is a Carolina wren whose good cheer
never falters all year long.

— Wendell Berry

Cheers!