One swing from a teenage Rory McIlroy let Nick Faldo know that the Northern Irishman was a future star. A child prodigy, McIlroy was destined for greatness from a young age and while he his career has been hall of fame worthy for over a decade, he achieved immortality last weekend by winning The Masters and becoming just the sixth man in history to achieve a career Grand Slam by winning all four majors. Almost 20 years earlier, three-time Masters champion Faldo saw a young Rory McIlroy do something that proved his mercurial talent was something to behold. He told The Times: “I had this thing called Team Faldo and I took six or eight of them to California. James Heath was the best amateur, Ollie Fisher was there. Rory was like third back then, but I remember I played with him in a practice round at Carnoustie [in 2007]. It was chucking it down with rain and he put all his waterproofs on and then he made that famous follow through and I went, ‘Wow, that’s different’. "That was the first time [I knew he was special]. McIlroy has produced a number of stunning shots since then en route to five major wins and more than twenty successes on the PGA Tour. Several of those helped him finally conquer Augusta during a final round with Faldo ranking McIlroy’s stunning second shot into the par-five 15th among the best in all of golf history. “Before the tournament I was trying to describe different attitudes and I was saying, ‘You don’t go happy-go-lucky at Augusta’, but that shot was definitely Monte Carlo or Bust,” he said. “I think that was right up there in the top half-a-dozen greatest shots we’ve seen over the years, and, more importantly for him, the greatest seven-iron he’s hit in his life.” McIlroy's first major came back in 2011, when he won the US Open. the first of his two PGA Championships came a year later with the Open captured in 2014. He now sits on five major wins, one shy of Faldo, but the Englishman insists his fellow Brit ranks ahead of him in the history books. "He’s done way more than me. He’s won 29 times in America,” he said. “Of the all-time greats, I’d put him fifth. Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack [Nicklaus] and Tiger [Woods]. Rory is right there. No discredit to Gene Sarazen, but that was a completely different era. I’ve hardly seen any footage of him, but achieving the grand slam puts you in a different category.” Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts.