That Sunday evening after darkness had fallen outside the media centre at Augusta National Golf Club, many questions were being asked of Rory McIlroy, the new Masters champion – and had been earlier in the week, too. But perhaps the most interesting was not from journalists addressed to him but from him to the assembled writers.
The afternoon’s frenzy had subsided and McIlroy had won his fifth major championship. He looked elated and tanned, if a little tired. He lowered himself gently into a chair, fiddled with the lapel and collar of the Irish green jacket he had just won and said: “I’d like to start this press conference with a question myself.
“What are we going to talk about next year?” he asked as laughter rose from the assembled throng.
What indeed?
It was a pointed reference to his having got rid of the “do you think this is your year to win the Masters?” types of questions that had been plaguing him for 11 years since winning the 2014 Open and thus needing only the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. “I’ve carried that burden since August 2014,” McIlroy said. “It was a heavy weight to carry and thankfully I don’t have to carry it and it frees me and I know I’m coming back here every year, which is lovely.”
“Honestly I feel like I’m playing with house money now. It’s going to free me up and hopefully this is the start of a really great period in my career.”
Rory McIlroy
Earlier in the week he had spoken of his affection for Augusta National. “I’ve always loved this course. People ask me if you could only play one course for the rest of your life, what would it be? And I think walking around this place every day would be pretty cool. I don’t think there is a more beautiful golf course on earth.”
But now that McIlroy has a lifetime of invitations to play in the Masters, now that he is no longer one of 12 men who have won three legs of the Grand Slam but one of six who have won all four, what are we going to be talking about? That is an easy question to deal with because an answer started coming within hours of McIlroy’s nail-biting victory.
We are going to be talking about how many more major championships he can win in his career. And for a while at least, with next month’s PGA Championship being held at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, where McIlroy has won four tournaments, we are going to be talking about the possibility of his winning the Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open and the Open Championship in a calendar year, the feat known as the Grand Slam.
He didn’t shy away from this line of conversation, saying: “Honestly I feel like I’m playing with house money now. It’s going to free me up and hopefully this is the start of a really great period in my career.”
Pádraig Harrington, Ireland’s best golfer until McIlroy came along, said: “We are now going to talk about whether he can beat Nick Faldo’s six majors or whether he can get to 10. We’re going to talk about whether he can get to 15 majors and whether he can get to 18 majors.
“He’s not a guy who gets injured,” Harrington continued. “He’s extremely powerful. It doesn’t matter that all these kids coming out of college are hitting it miles. It doesn’t matter to Rory. He is already the longest and nobody is going to have an advantage over him. They might eat into his advantage but his game is future-proof.”
Butch Harmon had predicted before the final round: “If he wins, this is going to change Rory. He is going to take off and will win major after major.”
Brad Faxon, who has helped McIlroy with his putting for a number of years, said: “He has played professional golf for more than half his life now and there is nothing that can stop this guy. Rory can double his number of majors; he can go on and win 10.”
Phew! Hold on a minute, shall we? Let’s not get too carried away. The assumption is now that the pressure of the Masters has gone, McIlroy will go from strength to strength as Jack Nicklaus did. Having won the career Grand Slam for the first time, Nicklaus went out and won it twice more on his way to victory in 18 professional major championships. Tiger Woods is the only other player to have won three career Grand Slams.
But because McIlroy has now won one career Grand Slam doesn’t mean he will progress to win another any more than a golfer who plays the front nine in 35 will play the back nine in the same number. Golf isn’t like that.
The name Jordan Spieth, 31, comes to mind. There was a time when the American couldn’t stop winning major championships. He won three in 28 months – the 2015 Masters and that year’s U.S. Open, and the 2017 Open at Royal Birkdale. Then what? Needing the PGA to achieve the career Grand Slam he appears to have lost some of his muse. His best finish at a PGA was second in 2015 and his last win on the PGA Tour was at the 2022 RBC Heritage.
In McIlroy's favour is the fact that he is only 35 and he seems destined to be able to play for an unusually long time in the same way that he hits the ball an unusually long way. It is surprising to realise that he began his professional career when Scottie Scheffler, who is 28, was 11 years old.
“I look at other sports and I’ve had an unbelievable [career] …” McIlroy said. “I turned pro in 2007 and I’m 18 years into a career. Not a lot of athletes can say they’ve had an 18-year career and I’m only 35.”
So McIlroy is embarking on what might well be the second part of his career. He needs two more major championships to have won seven. Are nine or 11 on the cards? Who knows? The swelling of support for him after his triumph in the 89th Masters indicated he may be among the most popular of all professional golfers.
One further aspect for which to be grateful that McIlroy did not come second on that sunny day in Georgia. A Northern Irish friend talks of AFAs, which means that now that her countryman has achieved the career Grand Slam there are going to be “angst-free Aprils.”
E-MAIL JOHN
Top: Rory's McIlroy's win at Augusta was his fifth major. Plenty of people are certain it won't be his last.
Logan Whitton, Augusta National