After a whirlwind year, Rory McIlroy plans to ‘cut back’ on tournaments in the future

Forgive Rory McIlroy if his 2024 season has felt like a blur.

In a whirlwind campaign that began in January with a victory at the Dubai Desert Classic, the Northern Irishman has kept up a jam-packed schedule that will see him compete in 27 tournaments by the end of the year. While his busy calendar has allowed for little let up, it has given McIlroy a chance to rethink how he goes about his business.

In the future, he plans to slow it down a bit.

“I’m going to try to cut it back to like 18 or 20 (events) a year going forward, I think,” he said.

McIlroy’s comments came in the wake of the Tour Championship, in Atlanta, where he fired a final-round 66 to finish in a tie for ninth. The event was McIlroy’s fourth in the past five weeks, including the Olympic Games in Paris, and his season isn’t over. He still has another five tournaments on his ledger.

“I feel like the tournaments came thick and fast, and obviously with the Olympics throw in there as well this year, it sort of condensed everything a bit.”

McIlroy’s year has been a rollercoaster, marked my emotional highs and lows. Along with Dubai, its peaks included a win at the Wells Fargo Championship, in May, where he chased down Xander Schauffele on Sunday for the title. But the most searing moment of his 2024 campaign came a month later with a devastating loss at the U.S. Open, at Pinehurst, where McIlroy’s stumbles down the stretch made room for Bryson Dechambeau’s heroics.

In Atlanta, McIlroy conceded that the effects of that loss still linger.

“I felt like I hit a bit of a wall sort of post-U.S. Open, and still feel a little bit of that hangover,” he said.

At the dawn of his career, before marriage and fatherhood, among other obligations, McIlroy said that he was better suited for a go-go schedule. But a 27-tournament year is now too much.

“I’m usually sort of like a 22 sort of person,” McIlroy said. “But again, that was when I was sort of in my 20s and didn’t have the responsibilities that I do now.”

At 35, he’s ready to ramp it back. But he can’t just yet. He’ll be back in action next week at the Irish Open, at Royal County Down, and again at the Alfred Dunhill Links at St. Andrews, in October.

“It’s been a long season,” McIlroy said, “and I’m going to just have to think about trying to build in a few extra breaks here and there next year and moving forward.”