The Northern Irishman’s form has fallen off a cliff since he won that elusive Masters title earlier this year and he has admitted that he has struggled for motivation since the Green Jacket win
In terms of natural ability and bravura shot-making, Rory McIlroy will go down as one of the greatest golfers to have played the game. Of that, there is little doubt.
And even now, most observers – and fellow professionals – would have him down as the most gifted operator in the modern era, even though the world ranking system has Scottie Scheffler as a runaway number one. He is certainly the most watchable.
McIlroy also happens to be one of the most charismatic sportsmen of his generation. Oh, and in terms of the history books, McIlroy, 36, has a place in an elite chapter, being only one of six golfers to win all four Majors, the Grand Slam.
But his final golfing legacy will, to a large extent, be defined by how he follows up that wonderful achievement in Augusta earlier this year. When Tiger Woods became the youngest golfer to complete the Grand Slam – sealing it in style by winning The Open in 2000 at St Andrews, no less – here’s how he followed it up.
He WON the next two Majors. He WON four of the next seven Majors.
Quite simply, Woods had a hunger for glory that had only been matched by Jack Nicklaus. Does McIlroy have that hunger? Perhaps we are about to see.
Such had been his wait for that missing moment, for that epic Masters win, that the victory at Augusta was always likely to take a psychological toll. Sure enough, in the next Major, the US PGA Championship, McIlroy finished in a tie for 47th.
And ahead of the recent Canadian Open, he said: “You have this event in your life that you have worked towards and it happens. Sometimes, it is hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.”
McIlroy missed the cut at the Canadian Open. Again, the Grand Slam means McIlroy is guaranteed a rarefied place in the pantheon of great golfers.
But on the list of Major winners, he is in a tie for 15th, albeit with, amongst others, the legend that is Seve Ballesteros. Not bad company. Few, though, would have believed it would take 14 years for McIlroy to win another four Majors after winning his first, the 2011 US Open, at the age of 22.
And few believe McIlroy will win a sixth Major when he tees it up at Oakmont in the US Open today. There are clearly motivational issues.
“I think it’s trying to have a little bit of amnesia and forget about what happened six weeks ago. Then, it’s just trying to find the motivation to go back out there and work as hard as I’ve been working” he says.
All very understandable. But you could never have imagined Tiger saying that?
When McIlroy won his fourth Major, the 2014 US PGA Championship, at the age of 25, there was talk of him gunning for Woods’ tally, which now stands at 15, or even for the Nicklaus record of 18. Those suggestions have long since disappeared.
There are plenty more Majors left in McIlroy. But only if he can dig deep and find the type of mental drive that marks out the greatest.