Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour year began with a triumphant walk down the 18th fairway at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he delivered a prescient message to caddy Harry Diamond.
“Start as you want to continue,” McIlroy said, en route to victory that week.
McIlroy went on to win the Players before completing the Grand Slam career at the Masters. A period of malaise engulfed his summer before a home Open at Royal Portrush provided the final wave for a ‘dream season’ that included an Irish Open win, an away win in the Ryder Cup and a BBC Sports Personality of the Year trophy.
This year has had almost everything for McIlroy, who has been struggling with an existential question for months now: What’s next?
That question dominated his summer, but by the time the Open arrived, McIlroy had seemingly found a way to enjoy a dream come true while repositioning himself for the remainder of his professional career. The goal and focus for the next phase of Rory McIlroy’s career is to win the tournaments that matter, in the places that matter. The rest is the rest.
Last weekend McIlroy won another prize, he took home his third RTE Sportsperson of the Year Award and looked to the future while acknowledging the harsh truth about life after a season that had everything he wanted.
“You know, I think I have to feel mentally comfortable, maybe this will be my best year ever,” McIlroy told RTE after collecting the award. “Who knows? I hope that’s not the case, you know. I hope I have many more great years ahead of me. But you know, no matter what I do in the future, I’ll only be able to win my first Masters once. And I really enjoyed that.”
“And I’ve loved the opportunity to take the green jacket around the world and show it off. It’s been a wonderful year, but I still think I have a lot more to achieve. So I’m still ambitious.”
After a subpar performance at the US Open at Oakmont, McIlroy said he was trying to find a new mountain to climb. A home Open at Royal Portrush was an easy one, but there will be more to come. After ticking off the Masters and a Ryder Cup in his career, one mountain looms larger than the other.
“I think in this part of my career I’m looking for big tournaments and huge moments,” McIlroy said. “Major golf championships are one of them. Ryder Cups. And then of course the Olympics. I’ve had a taste of two Olympics now, Tokyo and Paris, and I’ve been pretty close to getting a medal both times. So in 2028 in LA I’d like to give myself another chance to get on that podium and bring a medal back to Ireland.”
As McIlroy looks forward to the next phase of his career, he takes inspiration from the man who competed with him for the green jacket in April.
Rose has called this phase of his career an ‘Indian Summer’. He’s not sure how long it will last, but he has two second-place finishes in the last five majors, won the FedEx St. Jude in Memphis this year and was once again a key figure in a European Ryder Cup victory. Rose has done everything he can to keep his game sharp and his body healthy.
It’s easy to forget what Rory McIlroy did this bee this level for almost two decades. His playing had little ebbs and flows, but Rory McIlroy has been Rory McIlroy for almost twenty years in a row. It’s an impressive feat that often gets lost in the everyday discourse surrounding golf’s current needle.
“You look at something [Novak] Djokovic has done in recent weeks at Wimbledon,” McIlroy said at the Genesis Scottish Open in July, “or what some of those guys have done or what someone like Cristiano Ronaldo is still doing at 40, or Tom Brady in American football; that part about longevity is something that maybe doesn’t get talked about enough.
“Because once you get to a certain level, I feel like the journey up is almost – it’s not – I’m not going to say it’s easy, but you have momentum and you ride that wave to the top. And once you get there, yeah, it takes just as much work, if not more work, to stay there. Because I think about my career before I won this major this year, the last major I won in 2014, I had never heard of Scottie Scheffler.”
McIlroy’s goal is to remain this Rory McIlroy for another ten to fifteen years. To do that, he knows changes are needed to stay fresh and not be defeated by time.
“I think if I want to play at the highest level for another ten years,” McIlroy said at the DP World Tour Championship, “then, yeah, I have to scale back my schedule so that – you know, it’s weird – I want to play less every year. more in the future, you know?”
Shortening the schedule aligns with McIlroy’s vision to focus only on major tournaments, big moments, iconic courses and global golf.
After a dream year with an existential quest at its center, McIlroy knows what’s on the horizon and has a plan to get there. Nothing could ever top his 2025, but McIlroy is no longer looking for what comes next. He has a clear vision for what life after a dream season looks like, and it turns out it’s not all that different from life before: the mountains he wants to climb are different, but the vision is no less grand.
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