In 2014, Rory McIlroy won his fourth major title, capturing the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club with a final round 68. He was just 25 years old. The only other golfers to win three legs of the career Grand Slam at such a young age were Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. It felt, at the time, like the torch had truly been passed to the next generational player. He was just entering his prime, and as he raised the Wanamaker Trophy in the waning August light of Kentucky, anything seemed possible. He might not be the next Nicklaus or Woods, but he had a real chance to go down as one of the greatest players in history.
Even McIlroy seemed to understand it.
“I think I've got to take it one small step at a time. I think the two next realistic goals are the career Grand Slam, and trying to become the most successful European player ever. So Nick Faldo, most successful European ever in the modern era‑‑ Nick Faldo has six. Seve has five. Obviously the career Grand Slam coming up at Augusta in eight months time or whatever it is, they are the next goals. And hopefully, when I achieve those, I can start to think about other things.”
If anyone had declared in 2014 that McIlroy would play the next decade without winning another major, they likely would have been laughed at. It would have seemed preposterous. You would have assumed he’d been plagued by injuries, or that his personal life had fallen apart. But here we are, a decade later, and McIlroy is 0-37 in majors since the 2014 PGA. His personal life has been relatively stable, his body relatively healthy. The career Grand Slam, which once felt like a matter of time, now seems more like a burden than a blessing.
He remains one of the game’s best players, and is the only golfer from 2014 ranked in the Top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings who is still there. But it has been a decade of subtle heartbreaks and disappointments in major championships. Thirty seven majors is a career for many golfers. It represents, at best guess, 74 flights, 111 practice rounds, 259 nights in a hotel, 518 trips to and from the golf course, and at least 777 meals. In the midst of that, McIlroy has deployed a half-dozen approaches in an attempt to break his streak, including but not limited to: meditation, juggling, vulnerability, overconfidence, aggression and indifference. He has sought out different coaches, changed equipment, fired his old caddie and hired a new caddie. He has run out of ways to describe how much it would mean to finally break through.
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“Obviously getting my hands on a fifth major has taken quite a while, but I'm more confident than ever that I'm right there, that I'm as close as I've ever been,” McIlroy said Tuesday from Pinehurst.
Before McIlroy tees it up this Thursday in his 65th major as a professional, it felt relevant to look back on McIlroy’s lost decade, if only to see what patterns emerge.
There have been near-misses in majors, certainly, but fewer than you might remember.
It’s the volatility that best tells his story.
2015
Masters — It’s McIlroy’s first chance to win the career Grand Slam, and the hype could scarcely be bigger. He’s also coming off a Ryder Cup performance where he destroyed Rickie Fowler in singles, starting the match 6-under through six holes. To close out the prior year, he won two consecutive majors, and it feels to many like he’s about to dominate the sport. In a cover story for Golf Digest, McIlroy reflects on his break up with fiancée Caroline Wozniacki, and says the turbulence in his personal life made him rededicate himself to golf.
"After [the breakup], I thought, What else do I have in my life?" he told Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz. "I have family and friends, but they're always going to be there. What else? That's when I decided, You know what, I'm just going to immerse myself in golf for a while. I spent more time at it, thought about it more, spent more time at the range and at the gym. Because that's all I had, and that's all I wanted to do."
He is still wrestling with fame at age 25, but learning to embrace what feels like to be dubbed The Chosen One of his generation.
"Until just a few years ago, I don't want to say I felt guilty for being successful because I had this ability given to me, but it was sort of like, 'Why me?' " he says. "Because I felt like it's a very selfish thing to be a winner, a very selfish trait. Which is what you sort of need in golf. And I guess it just took me a while to be comfortable with that, just because of the personality I have. I realized that if I want to succeed in golf, which I do, I need to have it. What helped was realizing how much people like winners, how people gravitate to them. So if other people are happy for me winning, then why can I not be?"
McIlroy opens with 71-71 and finds himself 12 shots behind eventual winner Jordan Spieth. Shooting 68-66 on the weekend when he’s out of contention offers some solace, but he leaves with positive feelings about Augusta.
“It’s just a matter of putting it all together,” McIlroy says.
U.S. Open (Chambers Bay) — “Do I feel like the best player in the world? Yes,’’ McIlroy says in his pre-tournament press conference at Chambers Bay. “I think when LeBron talks about that, that’s not confidence, that’s a fact when you look at how he’s carried his team in these Finals. If you look at the numbers, you can really see he is the best player in the world.
“And for me, I feel the same way when I look at the World Rankings and I see my name up at the top. If you look back at the last four or five years, I guess I’ve won more majors [four] than anyone else in that time period.’’
Despite great driving and ball-striking — one of his best ever, McIlroy says — he gets off to an uninspired start, 72-72, and again watches Spieth jump out to a big lead. But on the weekend, something finally clicks. He begins Sunday +4, but makes six birdies and no bogeys through 13 holes. He climbs to within three shots of the lead at one point. But a missed birdie putt on 14 and a bogey on 15 ruins any chance of a comeback.
“Thank God I’ve got one of these,” he tells caddie J.P. Fitzgerald during the tournament, a reference to his 2011 U.S. Open win.
Spieth wins his second consecutive major.
Open Championship (St. Andrews) — There is considerable hype for Rory in the lead-up to the Open, to be held at The Old Course, a track where he holds the course record. (He shot a 63 during the first round of The Open in 2010.) But McIlroy stuns the golf world the week before the Open by announcing on Instagram he’s ruptured a ligament in his left ankle playing soccer with his friends and will have to miss the championship.
“I thought I broke it. Because as soon as I went over on it, I heard like a snap,” McIlroy says.
He’s disappointed but vows to keep playing soccer.
"Anytime I go back home, one of the things that I regularly do with my friends is to play football,'' McIlroy said. "That was like the fourth or fifth time in a 10-day period where I had played football. I enjoy it. We all enjoy it. And it's unfortunate that it happened.”
Zach Johnson wins the Open in a playoff against Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman.
PGA (Whistling Straits) — McIlroy returns for the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits after seven weeks off, but he’s not in any kind of form to compete. He’s plagued by another slow start, opening 71-71 before two good rounds over the weekend allowed him to finish T-17.
Jason Day outduels Spieth for his first major title.
Then, Spieth dethroned McIlroy as the No. 1 player in the world. "I think it's a lost year already, just because I didn't win a major," said McIlroy, summing up his year at the Tour Championship.
2016
Masters — In his second attempt at winning the career Grand Slam, McIlroy decides to steer clear of Augusta prior to the tournament, not visiting in the spring or in the week ahead of the Mas
Source: https://nolayingup.com/blog/the-lost-decade-of-rory-in-majors