McIlroy's dream: 'I've done that'
Whatever comes next 'is a bonus' for Rory; Donald, Bradley face different team options
Rory McIlroy reflected on his Masters victory and looked ahead at his future goals (Scott Taetsch/PGA of America)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Rory McIlroy might be excused if he celebrated for the rest of the year. Enjoy the view, have fun, don’t worry too much about doing anything else on the golf course. A career Grand Slam, Masters victory and a fifth major championship has given him the ability to care less and revel more.
There are, of course, other ambitions. McIlroy has other pursuits in the game even after his emotional Masters victory last month.
But if he doesn’t … no matter.
He is now freed up from the burden of trying to achieve the career slam in what many view as an opening to further greatness.
“Look, I have achieved everything that I’ve wanted — I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do in the game,” McIlroy said on the eve of the PGA Championship. “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.”
That is a solid way to approach the second major of the year and the rest of his career.
McIlroy, 36, begins play today at the PGA Championship, a tournament he has won twice and at a Quail Hollow venue where he’s won four times, including last year’s Wells Fargo Championship.
It is difficult to imagine better circumstances to be in after the emotional aftermath of winning the Masters and becoming just the sixth player to complete the career slam.
His game is in in a good place, having won three times this year and coming off a tie for seventh on Sunday at the Truist Championship. He’s playing at a venue he loves with soft conditions that certainly don’t hurt him. And he no longer has the burden of fulfilling expectation.
There are certainly goals, but even those at this point pale in comparison. And McIlroy knows such goals can be a detriment.
“I think everyone saw how hard having a ‘north star’ is and being able to get over the line,” McIlroy said of trying to win a fifth major championship after 11 years, especially the Masters. “If I can just try to get the best out of myself each and every week, I know what my abilities are. I know the golf that I can play. And if I keep turning up and just trying to do that each and every week, especially in these four big ones a year, I know that I’ll have my chances.
“I’ve always said I’m never going to put a number on it. I’ve talked about trying to become the best European ever or the best international player ever or whatever that is. But again the numbers tell one story, but it might not be the full story.
“I feel like I sort of burdened myself with the career Grand Slam stuff, and I want to enjoy this. I want to enjoy what I’ve achieved, and I want to enjoy the last decade or whatever of my career, and I don’t want to burden myself by numbers or statistics. I just want to go and try to play the best golf I can.”
McIlroy’s reference to best European player could mean Nick Faldo, who won six major championships, or Harry Vardon, who long before there was a Masters won the British Open six times and the U.S. Open once. Or it could be Seve Ballesteros, who won five majors and built the European Tour on his shoulders.
The greatest international player would be Gary Player, who won nine majors and whose 24 PGA Tour victories McIlroy has already surpassed with 29.
If anything, McIlroy might have a more immediate task in trying to get past the Masters.
He’s gone to London to visit a new home under construction, to Northern Ireland to visit his parents, back to Florida and then New Orleans for the Zurich Classic. Last week, he was in Philadelphia for the Truist and returned to Florida to practice on Monday before coming to Charlotte.
His reaction in falling to his knees on the final green after holing with winning putt in the playoff over Justin Rose speaks to the enormity of the accomplishment.
“I’ve tried not to watch it a lot because I want to remember the feelings and I want to — I’ve talked about this before, but I think when I rewatch a lot of things back, I then just remember of the visuals of the TV rather than what I was feeling and what I was seeing through my own eyes, so I haven’t tried to watch it back too much,” he said. “But anytime I have, I well up. I still feel like I want to cry. It was an involuntary — I’ve never felt a release like that before, and I might never feel a release like that again. That could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and it was a very cool moment.”
McIlroy is grouped for the first two rounds with Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. They begin play at 8:22 a.m. on Thursday and at 1:25 p.m. on Friday.
No easy Ryder for captains
There was a lot of deflecting going on regarding the Ryder Cup and the status of Team Europe’s second most prominent player. Jon Rahm deflected to captain Luke Donald. Donald deflected to DP World CEO Guy Kinnings. Had Kinnings been brought to the podium at Quail Hollow, he surely would have kicked the can to someone with more authority – perhaps God or Rory McIlroy.
Has Rahm been told not to worry, that he’ll be on the team despite currently sitting 29th in points? “That’s a question for Luke. It’s his team. Hopefully I can qualify, and we don’t have to question it.”
Has Donald been told not to worry, that Rahm (and Tyrrell Hatton) will be eligible to play? “That’s a question for Guy Kinnings. I do not get involved with the politics of that. So my concentration is to get the best 12 players to New York, and hopefully everyone is eligible.”
What was clearly not being said was that there will almost certainly be no scrutiny of the appeal of LIV golfers before October at the earliest and that Spain’s Rahm — as well as his LIV Legion XIII teammate Tyrrell Hatton — will be among the 12 best players fitted for blue and yellow uniforms to wear in September at Bethpage Black.
“Well, I haven’t given anyone the nod,” Donald said Wednesday ahead of the PGA Championship.
“I certainly think it’s a little too early to be giving anyone, like, firm assurances right now. We have three majors, elevated events, plenty of other events, Rolex Series events to play. I want them to go out and feel like they go and earn it. Let’s go in and play well.
“But again, we do have a lot of stats. In terms of Jon, he’s one of the best players in the world, and I would expect him to be on that team, but I certainly haven’t given him those assurances. He still needs to keep going and playing just like everyone else.
“Again, no assurances have been given right now.”
Donald never winked and kept a straight face through all of that. Hatton, who currently ranks fourth on the European points list, and Rahm will be — barring injury — on Donald’s team at Bethpage. They’re going to be the only two LIV guys playing for Europe (sorry Sergio) just as (unless someone like Brooks Koepka can win a major) there will only be one LIV guy on Keegan Bradley’s U.S. team, Bryson DeChambeau.
While things could change with three majors still left to play starting with this week’s PGA, anyone would much rather be Donald than Bradley right now. On paper, this European team might actually be favored to win the Ryder Cup road match since since 2012 in the Miracle at Medinah.
Eight Europeans are currently ranked among the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking, and every one of them was a member of Donald’s winning team in Rome. Rasmus Højgaard (currently third in points) is a good bet to replace, if not join, his twin brother, Nicolai. Veterans from Rome with a lot of work to do to be considered are Bob MacIntyre, Nicolai Højgaard and Matthew Fitzpatrick, while a handful of Danes (Niklas Norgaard, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and Thorbjørn Olesen), Englishmen (Matt Wallace and Laurie Canter) and a Belgian (Thomas Detry) jockey for the captain’s attention on potentially two available spots.
Of course, there are 10 Americans also in the OWGR top 20, including four of the top five. But one of them is captain Keegan, who won’t be playing, and two others — Russell Henley and Maverick McNealy — have never played in a Ryder Cup. Another (Wyndham Clark) has been in a rather steady decline this season. Bradley could be replacing as much as half the roster that participated in Rome two years ago, with Jordan Spieth (27th), Sam Burns (28th) and Max Homa (30th) all distant considerations with four months to go.
Donald, however, is dealing from a position of strength with Europeans dominating this season on the big stages, winning eight times on the PGA Tour already including three signature events, the Players and the Masters.
“When you have two or three guys up there — like at the Masters we had obviously Rory, Justin (Rose), Ludvig (Åberg), last week Shane (Lowry) and Sepp (Straka) — there’s always going to be one loser, as well, which is the tough part because I’m texting the guys ‘hard luck,’” Donald said. “But inside I’m thinking, this is great, because I’ve got a few potential guys all playing really well.
“It’s a great problem to have. I love the momentum that we have so far. The players always seem to elevate their games in Ryder Cup years, and it’s good to see.”
Ultimately when it comes to parsing out his six captain’s picks, experience will be a decisive factor in the end. The New York crowds at Bethpage are likely to be more hostile and belligerent than usual, and it’s a cauldron that Donald will need to trust being able to throw a player into knowing he can handle it.
“I think I will certainly give a little bit more importance to experience, people who have been able to handle those big moments under the most scrutiny, those major championships, people who can step up, have had chances to win or have won major championships,” Donald said. “I think it’s something I will definitely consider, and it will be something that could give someone an edge if they’re on a very similar playing field in terms of statistics.
“I wouldn’t say it’s one over the other. I think statistics and data is really important, but gut instinct and personality matchups is equally as important.”
That makes this week at Quail Hollow as well as the U.S. Open at Oakmont and the Open Championship at Royal Portrush de facto qualifying events for Ryder Cup hopefuls — especially any promising rookies wanting to catch Donald’s eye.
“Then obviously the majors are important,” Donald said. “I think that’s the time when everyone gets together on good golf courses and you have stacked fields. Just to see how they’re playing in those is another point that we take into consideration quite a lot.”
Meanwhile, Bradley is trying to draw together what might be a very different looking U.S. team at Bethpage. He put together a dinner for prospective players in suburban Philadelphia before last week’s Truist Championship. Among the invitees were LIV stars DeChambeau (who attended via Zoom) and Koepka, who Bradley said “were in there on points and they played on previous teams.”
Conspicuously not among those invitees was erstwhile “Captain America” Patrick Reed, who just happens to sit 66 spots higher in the U.S. Ryder Cup standings (25th) than Koepka (91st) and more than 300 spots higher in the OWGR (Reed at 52 and Koepka 354).
“This Ryder Cup and what comes with this, no one cares about what’s going on in this side PGA Tour-LIV. We’re trying to put the best team together,” Bradley said. “It could mean there’s one LIV guy, two LIV guys, it doesn’t matter. We’ll see how this year shakes out.”
Beyond the obvious locks at this point — Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, DeChambeau an Patrick Cantlay — Bradley isn’t blessed with a lot of experience to choose from. Koepka and Spieth could play their way into easy choices with strong summers. McNealy and Andrew Novak may be the most promising options for fresh blood. Daniel Berger has past Cup experience. Bulldogs Brian Harman and Henley are solid options with international team experience who could fit nicely into the team room. Perhaps someone like Tony Finau or Akshay Bhatia could get hot and play their way into consideration.
Like Donald, Bradley will be looking at how guys play this week at Quail Hollow and in the summer’s other majors and signature/playoff events.
“I think these majors kind of separate guys,” Bradley said. “You see a guy hang in there on Sunday, that’s an impressive thing, especially around a course like this. …
“These majors, there’s a lot of points at stake here, and the movement on the points list, it can be a lot in these events. You see a guy, maybe a younger guy, that stands up to the pressure and can feel this, this is as close as we’re going to get to Bethpage in that the pressure on Sundays is a lot in a major, and you can see a lot there.”