A little over a month ago, Rory McIlroy felt his knee give way under the weight of a childhood dream finally fulfilled.
McIlroy’s victory at the Masters and the achievement of a career Grand Slam have sparked a glow that has not yet faded from the consciousness of the sport. It is enough to listen to what the best players in the world have said this week about his achievement.
Justin Thomas commented that seeing McIlroy was a good reminder of how much this achievement is something he desires for himself, which caused him a mixture of motivation and envy. Scottie Scheffler marveled at the work McIlroy has done throughout his career to win all four majors. Jordan Spieth, who is missing a PGA Championship to complete his own career Grand Slam, called it inspiring.
Spieth stated: “You could tell it was a tougher win, most of the time he makes it look a lot easier. So obviously that was at the forefront of his mind. Something like that not many people have accomplished, and there’s a reason for that.”
Jon Rahm added: “I think it’s been a very difficult hurdle to overcome, and you could see his emotion towards the end. He’s had a lot of opportunities. It’s just never easy. It’s very difficult. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this took a weight off his shoulders that could propel him into another streak.”
Adding fuel to the fire, McIlroy’s first major since conquering the career Grand Slam is held at Quail Hollow Country Club, a place he has turned into his personal trophy vending machine (he has won there four times) and which makes him the clear favorite of the tournament this week.
However, as quickly as we all, including Rahm, are prepared to move his narrative to the next frontier: “How many majors can he win now?”, and to characterize McIlroy as liberated after capturing his white whale, it is McIlroy himself who seems to want to slow things down, enjoy the moment a little more and appreciate it for what he says it might be.
“I still want to create many other highlights and high points, but I’m not sure if any other victory will live up to what happened a few weeks ago,” McIlroy said. “I’m still going to set goals. I’m still going to try to achieve certain things. But I’m here knowing that that might well be the highlight of my career.”
Rory McIlroy
How could it not be?
The way McIlroy finally secured the elusive green jacket, the way he showed his flaws, talent, and resilience during 72 grueling holes and then, the way he celebrated, less an emphatic ecstasy and more a sigh of emotional relief. All of this was a moment that will be etched in history, a moment that McIlroy himself wants to remember with his own eyes and body and not as part of a video that will be played for years.
“I’ve tried not to watch it too much because I want to remember the feelings,” McIlroy said. “But every time I do, I get emotional. I still feel like I want to cry. I’ve never felt a release like that before, and I may never feel a release like that again. That might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and it was a really good moment.”
Listening to McIlroy speak on Wednesday was to wonder if his understanding that the 2025 Masters might be his defining moment, that being able to experience that feeling, means not that McIlroy will keep chasing more majors with a newfound freedom, but that he has found something that professional athletes are almost always taught to avoid: contentment.
“I’ve achieved everything I wanted, I’ve done everything I wanted to do in the game,” he said. “I dreamed as a kid of being the best player in the world and winning all the majors. I’ve done that. Anything that comes after this, for as long as I decide to play the game competitively, is a bonus.”
Rory McIlroy
Winning a Masters to end his major drought and complete the career Grand Slam put a neat bow on the narrative that had surrounded him. It was a 2-for-1 that felt equally predestined and impossible. So it’s not just satisfaction and fulfillment that McIlroy seems to have found, but also perspective. The destination was worth the arduous journey, but it didn’t make it any less exhausting.
“I think everyone saw how difficult it is to have a North Star and be able to cross the line,” McIlroy said. “I feel like I’ve burdened myself with the career Grand Slam, and I want to enjoy this.”
In the past, McIlroy has said that he wants to be considered the best European player to have played (only two other Europeans have more majors than him) and that he wants to win a Ryder Cup away from home (this year’s event at Bethpage Black gives him that opportunity), but everything is secondary to being able to do what he did at Augusta this year. For a player like McIlroy, whose most impressive trait is his longevity at the top of the game, the mere number of victories or majors does not seem to be a priority.
“I’ve always said I’m never going to put a number on it. Numbers tell a story, but it’s not, it might not be the complete story,” he said. “I want to enjoy what I’ve accomplished, and I want to enjoy the last decade or whatever of my career.”
At 36, it’s easy to forget that McIlroy has been a professional for 18 years. The lack of a Masters occupied so much space in his story that, once completed, he seems to be hinting at entering a different stage of his career, one that will also begin to raise the question of how much longer he wants to play.
McIlroy has already said, for example, that he will not play Champions Tour golf and that something will have gone terribly wrong if he feels he has to compete at 50. This can also be seen in the way he is changing his schedule, playing more tournaments abroad, fewer tournaments in general, and committing to international events such as the Irish Open last year and two upcoming Australian Opens.
Recently, he also said that he no longer cares where professional golf ends up with respect to the LIV-PGA Tour negotiations.
But when it comes to golf in this new reality, McIlroy, who is undoubtedly playing the best golf in the world right now, insists that he will not change his attitude or his approach.
On Thursday morning, he will walk to the first tee of a tournament and begin his quest for a victory as he has done hundreds of times. Nothing he has done before will change what he is trying to achieve. Maybe he will feel lighter, maybe he won’t put as much pressure on his game, or maybe he will surprise himself on Sunday, if he finds himself in the fight, and feel a bit of the competitive juice he felt five Sundays ago.
It’s not that McIlroy’s competitiveness is somehow diluted now, but rather that, as he sits atop the mountain he took nearly 11 years to climb, McIlroy is telling us that with a Masters and a career Grand Slam now on his resume, he has found his version of golf nirvana.
“It’s everything I thought it would be,” McIlroy said.
Rory McIlroy
