McIlroy ‘three goals’ from career satisfaction

With only three burning goals in the game, Rory McIlroy has a chance to defeat two of them in 2025, which also includes a sizable number of major venues.

There is very little the 35-year-old from Northern Ireland has accomplished as he begins his most recent season abroad, amassing what modern jargon would call a vastly impressive body of work since turning pro in 2007.

Nearly every golfer on earth would be willing to switch professions.

He is arguably the UK’s most prolific golfer among Americans, and he maintains a definite place among the top three players worldwide.

With five victories in seven games, McIlroy is the pivot that Europe has a lot of success with the Ryder Cup. In addition to more than 40 professional victories, 26 of which were on the PGA Tour, he has four majors to his name.

In 2022 he became the first golfer to become a three-time FedEx Cup champion, the American circuit’s season-long crown, and on Europe’s DP World Tour no current member can touch him with six Race to Dubai successes including each of the past three years.

And yet, and yet.

He has been attempting to land that coveted Green Jacket for a decade to satisfy a collection that currently includes trophies from the US Open (2014), US Open (2011), and two US PGA Championships (2012 and 2014).

He has the most ambitions for the Masters, but he also has the motivation to add Olympic glory after winning the Ryder Cup for the second time. Give those to him, and he would be on fire for success in golf.

“Winning the Masters, winning an Olympic medal and another away Ryder Cup, they are my three goals for the rest of my career”, McIlroy told BBC Sport.

This former Olympic skeptic has to wait until the Los Angeles Games in 2028, which might be his last real chance to win a medal, but his other two goals are firmly on his mind for this year.

So McIlroy is tailoring everything to be in top form when he tees it up at Augusta on the second Thursday of April as he kicks off his 2025 PGA Tour campaign at Pebble Beach this week.

“I’ve realised that all I can control is myself”, he said. “To fully concentrate on myself, get the most out of myself, and get back to winning the biggest tournaments in the world is what’s right for me right now.”

I’ve been agonizingly close for the past few years, despite the fact that this year’s main focus has been on that.

One of the most startling statistics in modern sport is that more than ten years have passed since he last added his list of significant victories.

He has won pretty much everything else, including winning the prestigious Players Championship in 2019, when Sawgrass was hosting the tournament’s biggest tournament for the PGA Tour’s flagship title.

But the Players is not a major. His 2025 schedule, which he has shortened, is meant to teach success in the big four events that ultimately determine careers.

” All of my practice, all of my prep, even the tournaments that I’m playing, it’s all geared towards being ready for those four events, “McIlroy said.

” Augusta is Augusta. I looked through my stats, and there are a few things I could definitely improve at doing with particular little shots around the greens.

He famously blew a four-shot final-round lead with a ruinous 80 at the 2011 Masters and he was runner-up without truly contending in 2022. In one of his four top-five Augusta finishes, he faded tamely in the final pairing with champion Patrick Reed in 2018.

The location of Quail Hollow, the site of the US PGA Championship in May, is unmatched for the second major of the year. McIlroy won his first PGA Tour championship there in May of last year, and he won it there 15 years later.

” At Quail Hollow I’ve played some great golf, “he said”. I’ve won four times there.

“I played some of my best golf in the final round against Xander Schauffele, who went on to win two majors last year.”

McIlroy missed the cut when it was last played there nine years ago, so he is looking forward to competing in the US Open on one of the championship’s toughest tracks in June.

He has previously finished second at the US Open, last year in agonizing fashion after allowing Bryson DeChambeau to take the final two holes to a lead by two shots at Pinehurst.

According to McIlroy, who has placed in the top nine in the previous six editions of the traditionally toughest major, “I think I will relish this place more as a US Open test than I did back in 2016,”

With The Open taking place at Royal Portrush in his native Northern Ireland, McIlroy couldn’t have anticipated the year ahead. When the Antrim links returned to the rota in 2019 after a 58-year absence, he flopped spectacularly amid the weight of such eager anticipation.

In round one, he slumped to a 79 and hit his opening shot out of bounds, but despite a lively second round of 65, he missed the cut. Then, unfinished business.

According to McIlroy, “I feel like I’m getting a better sense of how I need to approach the week in order to play well at home with those expectations.”

“I had a great chance to win the Irish Open at RCD]Royal County Down] last year. Through that, I learned a lot more.

“So, you know, all those experiences I’ve had will hopefully help me succeed in Portrush as well. And I need to interpret the near misses as positives rather than negatives.

However, there is an admission that goes against McIlroy’s malaise in the tournaments he most aspires to triumph in. He has never shied from the spotlight, but too frequently it has made him blink.

” I feel like I’ve always struggled to play at home, none more so than at Portrush in 2019, “he said.

“But I’m slowly learning to get over my own little cocoon and work my way through the expectations and the week’s mental exhaustion.”

“People will argue maybe I’m a slow learner, but at least I’m learning and I’m moving forward”.

So a Masters itch is still unanswered, a PGA at his favorite American hunting ground, and a home Open Championship are on the horizon.

Then Luke Donald’s European Ryder Cup team will have the opportunity to do something extraordinary at Bethpage in New York in September.

One of the greatest achievements in the game right now is winning an away Ryder Cup, he said, “and we have an opportunity to do that this year.” “You have heard me say this so many times.

“I think there’s one thing holding serve at home, which we’ve been able to do quite consistently. It’s a huge task]away from home].

” It’s a very strong American team, a very partisan crowd. However, we have a fantastic captain, a fantastic team, and are looking forward to the challenge.

Whisper it, but 2025 could be quite the year.