Rory McIlroy’s Grand Slam victory in the Masters, and the slump that followed, was the defining storyline of the golf season.
The Northern Irishman overcame Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Rose and his own ghosts to conquer Augusta National and end his decade-long major drought. But the euphoria of the career-defining victory eventually turned sour as McIlroy looked for his next mountain to climb. The elation of a moment he had been waiting for all his life was replaced by an existential question: What comes after you achieve your dreams?
“Look, you dream about the last putt going in at the Masters, but you don’t think about what comes next,” McIlroy said during the 2025 US Open at Oakmont. “I think I’ve always been a player who struggles to play after a big event, after I’ve won any tournament. I always struggle to show up the next week motivated, because you’ve just achieved something, and you want to enjoy it, and you want to enjoy a little bit of the fact that you’ve achieved a goal. I think that chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half gives me a little bit of time to get a little bit better. relaxed.”
“I think it’s trying to have a bit of amnesia and forget what happened six weeks ago,” McIlroy said the same day. “Then I just try to find the motivation to get back out there and work as hard as I’ve been working. I worked incredibly hard on my game from October last year through April of this year. It’s been fun to see the fruits of my labor come to fruition and make everything happen. But at the same time, you have to enjoy that. You have to enjoy what you’ve just accomplished. I definitely feel like I still do that and I will continue to do that.”
The existential question that arose for McIlroy in the wake of his Masters triumph is one that countless top athletes have grappled with. When David Duval won the Open Championship in 2001, he was shocked to discover that the “it” he was chasing had already evaporated on the flight home. Kevin Durant lifted his first championship trophy with the Golden State Warriors, but didn’t find his soul full in the way he thought he would. Tom Brady always said the best thing is a championship the next.
McIlroy wasn’t even the only major champion to face that plight in 2025. Scottie Scheffler gave a long thesis at the Open Championship about working so hard for just a few moments of happiness and placing his value in things bigger than golf.
“It only lasts a few minutes, such a euphoric feeling,” Scheffler said. “To win the Byron Nelson championship at home [in May] — I literally worked my whole life to get good at golf so I could have a chance to win that tournament. You win it, you celebrate it, you get to hug my family, my sister is there, it’s such a great moment. Then it’s: okay, what are we going to eat for dinner?’ Life goes on.”
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Dylan Dethier
As Scheffler prepared to win his second major of the year, 25-year-old Maja Stark was in the middle of her own quest.
The rising Swedish star held off Nelly Korda to win the 2025 US Women’s Open at Erin Hills in May, fulfilling a lifelong dream by winning the top prize in women’s golf. But after her victory in Wisconsin, Stark missed five of her next seven matches, including short stays at the AIG Women’s Open and Evian. Her best finish in the two months after Erin Hills was a T47 at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, where Stark broke her putter as her emotions boiled over as her week in Texas came to an end.
This week at the International Crown, Stark admitted that her win at the US Women’s Open left her looking for her next big goal.
“Honestly, it was a bit of a struggle after that because it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for so long, thinking about for so long, and the US Open is my favorite,” Stark said. “I had a lot of comfort after that, but it was probably too comfortable because I thought you’ve had your Tour card for five years, and I achieved the goal I wanted to achieve, which was just winning the US Open.
“So it was a bit of a struggle for me, and I feel like it took a few months for me to really come back and get back the motivation that I felt earlier in my career. So yeah, it was really hard this summer.”
Stark has been working with a sports psychologist to reset after a moment she’s been working on her whole life.
“I think it was just time, really,” Stark said of overcoming the slump. “It feels like you’re kind of coming back from – well, my high wasn’t very high, but you come from people wanting to talk about it all the time, and you just have to keep thinking back to this week, and it feels like I wasn’t living that week anymore. I had to move on, and I was like now we’re doing this, we set some new goals for the rest of the season, and I just got that mental help that I needed.”
Lydia Ko, who is playing in the first team event of her career at the International Crown this week, knows the feeling. Last summer, she stood on an Olympic podium in France after winning the gold medal and earning her place in the Hall of Fame. A few weeks later, Ko won the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews to end the summer of his life. Then came what psychologists call post-performance depression, or the pursuit of something more.
For Ko, she found solace in a Hall of Fame career that few can match. It’s okay to be happy with your achievements but still want to keep going. There’s no shame in wanting more.
“I think I thought that my life, or maybe the way I thought about myself, would change if I got into the Hall of Fame and did a lot of the things that I wanted to do before it actually happened, and I’m sure Rory feels the same way in similar parts, where everyone was like, oh, the Masters is the one he missed. Like what if? And then he did it,” Ko said at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship 2025. ‘And although I’m sure he’s so happy and relieved, he’s just as good the day before as he was before he won.
“I think I’ve come to some peace with that. Sometimes I think when it’s right in front of you and you see all these stats, you feel like you should be doing more. I think some of the things that we’ve already accomplished, we take for granted. I think that’s what I realized the most, and that’s what made me realize that I still have to go to practice and take the time to play well the next week.”
Ko stood by Stark’s side this week as the US Women’s Open champion bared her soul. Ko once again acknowledged that she knows the struggle, as she praised Stark for being open about her rut and the mental struggles she’s faced. Both know that they are not the first nor the last to climb a mountain and find no self-fulfillment at the top. People are not wired to pursue a single goal. We are seekers and wanderers by nature. There can always be more, always something next.
For McIlroy, he found it in the Open Championship at Royal Portrush and again in winning a Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. Ko climbed the mountain again last summer, came back down and is chasing her first US Women’s Open and KPMG Women’s PGA titles to complete her own Grand Slam career.
As for Stark, she’s setting new goals and looking for new mountains to climb. She will do this as the US Women’s Open champion and is now better equipped to handle the adversity when her next peak is reached.
The search continues for all of them. It never really stops.
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