Rory McIlroy isn’t thinking of winning all four majors this summer and completing the calendar slam, insisting that he has already achieved everything he ever wanted and any more success will be a bonus.
Defending PGA and Open champion Xander Schauffele labeled McIlroy a “scary” prospect heading into the remaining three majors of the season following his grand slam victory at the Masters last month, with many anticipating another major winning spree from McIlroy similar to the one which got him to four between 2011-2014.
McIlroy cut a relaxed figure in the press conference room at the 107th PGA Championship, played at Quail Hollow, a golf course he has won four Wells Fargo Championships on. His game also looks tailor made for the US Open test at Oakmont next month before Rory mania reaches fever pitch at Portrush in July.
Talk of the calendar slam won’t go away this week, but McIlroy was not as open about his major prospects as he had been over the last eleven years.
“I turn up and try to have the same attitude and the same approach to each and every tournament and try to get the best out of myself. Some weeks that results in wins, and some weeks it doesn’t,” said the Holywood man who has been drawn alongside Scottie Scheffler and Schauffele for the opening two rounds.
“As long as I approach every week that way, all I can do is go out there and try to play the golf that I know that I’m capable of. As I said, some weeks someone just plays better than you, and other weeks it’s your time.
“I’ve played over 400 events in my career. I’ve played a lot of major championships. I know how these things go, and you’ve just got to go out there and play.
“One of the things that I talk about with Rotella all the time is you just keep playing until you run out of holes, and hopefully by the time you run out of holes, whoever decided that 72 holes was the end of the golf tournament, hopefully your score is better than everyone else’s.”
McIlroy admits that the footage of his winning putt on the first playoff hole at Augusta National still makes him well up as he fulfilled a childhood dream of winning all four major titles.
Anything from now is a bonus. Whether winning the green jacket releases a pressure valve and removes a burden that allows him to dominate or whether it relinquishes his edge and focus remains to be seen.
“I have achieved everything that I’ve wanted — I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do in the game. I dreamed as a child of becoming the best player in the world and winning all the majors. I’ve done that.
“Everything beyond this, for however long I decide to play the game competitively, is a bonus.”
McIlroy announced himself as a golfing superstar at Quail Hollow in 2010, coming from the cut line to victory over the weekend. It truly was a “welcome to the big time.”
Further wins in 2015, 2021 and 2024 followed and dubbed “Rory McIlroy Country Club” by the latest grand slam chasing Jordan Spieth, McIlroy returns to his playground playing with house money.
A soggy Quail Hollow looks like it could play right into McIlroy’s wheelhouse of bombing drives and towering iron shots, but McIlroy is adamant that he is more than a pummel a golf course into submission player, believing he has the attitude and skillset for all tests.
“I talked about this at the Masters press conference, but statistically I had my best season in 2019. I won THE PLAYERS. I won the FedExCup. I had a good season.
“But I felt like my performances in the majors were disappointing. I wrote in my journal or my notebook that I wanted to try to change that, and I wanted to try to tailor my game around the four biggest tests of the year, and I wanted to be known as someone that excelled at the hardest venues.
“So I set about, okay, what do I need to do, what aspects of my game do I need to get better at, and I think a lot of it had to do with mentality and embracing the toughness of a U.S. Open test, for example.
“So I missed the cut at the U.S. Open 2016, 2017, 2018, and if you look at my results since then, I haven’t finished outside the top 10 in the U.S. Open, and that was a real effort.
“I wanted to be known as a player that could excel in those toughest environments, and even though I haven’t won a U.S. Open since then, my performances have been a lot, lot better.
“It was really about trying to retool my game in some ways, trying to master some shots that I hadn’t quite mastered and probably haven’t still mastered, but I’ve got better at them.
“And then just, yeah, the attitude thing is a big thing. Working with Rotella pretty consistently since 2021, I’ve sort of went on — we’ve worked on and off for quite a while but really consistently since ’21, has made a big difference.”
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