At least a few observers likened Rory McIlroy’s 17-year-long Masters title chase to the fictional Captain Ahob’s revenge-driven pursuit of a whale dubbed Moby Dick. Trouble with that analogy is Ahob’s hunt did not end well. In the climactic moments, the captain got tangled up in his own harpoon line, and the whale dragged him to his death.
McIlroy’s expedition, on the other hand, ended in much cheerier fashion, with Scottie Scheffler slipping the green jacket on to McIlroy’s shoulders.
Hurrah? Yes, of course! But there was also a downside to McIlroy’s long-awaited win: the sudden dearth of motivation he felt now that he had finally slayed his proverbial whale. McIlroy said he had spent years obsessing over winning the Masters and, with it, the career Grand Slam, yet little to no time considering his next steps if he actually closed the deal. Asked at the U.S Open in June about his five-year plan, McIlroy sounded like a job candidate caught flat-footed in an interview.
“I don’t have one,” he said. “I have no idea. I’m sort of just taking it tournament by tournament at this point. Yeah, I have no idea.”
McIlroy’s lack of direction and motivation paired with his underwhelming form — in his two previous starts before the U.S. Open, he’d missed the cut at the Canadian Open and finished T47 at the PGA Championship — caught the attention of the golf world, in particular McIlroy’s former Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley, who said on Golf Channel that week at Oakmont: “It was very worrying looking at [McIlroy’s] press conference. His eyes weren’t alive. The energy was not there. He didn’t have the pointy elbows. It looks like something has gone out of him since the Grand Slam, like the air has gone out of him, not just in how he’s played but in his press conferences. There will be a reset at some stage, but it doesn’t look like it’s coming this week. This is not normal Rory.”
McGinley’s analysis was shrewd, because a reset did come, in the form of six top-10s for McIlroy in the second half of the season, including a win at the Irish Open, and a 3.5-point haul at the Ryder Cup. There was something else, too: McIlroy began looking forward again. He had new goals, new fuel. He spoke of his PGA Tour and DP World Tour resumes “meaning a little less to me as time goes on,” and pouring himself into the majors and Ryder Cup. The legacy-building weeks.
On Wednesday, McIlroy got more specific still about his new carrots, identifying three more boxes he’d like to check before he hangs up his spikes.
“Olympic medal,” McIlroy said speaking from the Dubai Desert Classic. “Open at St Andrews. Maybe a U.S. Open at one of those like old, traditional golf courses whether it’s Shinnecock this year or Winged Foot or Pebble Beach, Merion.
“I would have told you two years ago, if I won the Masters, it would have been great, and I could have retired or whatever. But when you keep doing things, the goal posts keep moving, and you just keep finding new things that you want to do.”
Let’s take a closer look at those posts.
GOAL NO. 1: WIN AN OLYMPIC MEDAL
The first of McIlroy’s goals is the most interesting given his evolving view on golf’s place in the Olympics. When the sport debuted on the Olympic rota at the 2016 Games in Rio, McIlroy not only sat out (citing Zika-virus concerns) but also said he wouldn’t even watch from afar. Not for him. Five years later, though, when he found himself on the losing end of a 7-for-1 playoff for the bronze medal in Tokyo, McIlroy sang a decidedly different tune about Olympic golf. “I never tried so hard in my life to finish third,” he said. “Coming here experiencing it, seeing, feeling everything that goes on, not just Olympic golf but the Olympics in general, that Olympic spirit’s definitely bitten me.”
In Paris in 2024, McIlroy was agonizingly close to the podium again, finishing two strokes out of third after a spirited final-round rally. Afterward, he said, “I still think that the Ryder Cup is the best tournament that we have in our game, pure competition, and I think this has the potential to be right up there with it.”
McIlroy’s next shot at Olympic glory will come in 2028 at the Los Angeles Games, where Riviera will serve as the host site for the golf event. McIlroy has never won at Riv, but he’s a huge fan of the course’s strategic genius (and also of the L.A. area at large). He’ll be pushing 40 then and, who knows, maybe a seven- or eight-time major winner. But he’s certain to be deeply motivated. If McIlroy comes up short again, his fourth chance (assuming he qualifies) would come four years later in Brisbane, Australia.
The 2036 Olympics site has not yet been selected.
GOAL NO. 2: WIN AN OPEN AT ST. ANDREWS
The Open customarily comes to St. Andrews every five years with the next edition slated for 2027. Assuming this tradition continues and McIlroy stays healthy, he will have three more Old Course Open starts before he turns 50. That’s not to say McIlroy couldn’t win a major at 50 or older, as Phil Mickelson did at the 2021 PGA Championship and Tom Watson oh-so-nearly did at the 2009 Open Championship, but the odds would not be on McIlroy’s side.
Surprisingly, he’s played only two Opens at St. Andrews, in 2010 and 2022, both times finishing third; McIlroy missed the 2015 event with a bum ankle. The 2022 title was McIlroy’s for the taking, but in the final round he got boat-raced by Cameron Smith and finished two back in one of the most soul-crushing defeats of his career. If McIlroy finds himself needed any extra drive come 2027, he would do well to recall how crestfallen he felt on that Sunday evening.
GOAL NO. 3: WIN A U.S. OPEN AT AN ‘OLD, TRADITIONAL’ VENUE
This is the most curious item on McIlroy’s punch list, because he’s kinda already achieved it: His win at the 2011 U.S. Open came at Congressional, a classic Devereaux Emmet design built in the 1920s. But reading the tea leaves — and noting that McIlroy name-checked Shinnecock, Pebble, Winged Foot and Merion — we’re going to presume when he says “old” and “traditional,” he means “courses in the pantheon.”
The good news for McIlroy is that nearly every future U.S. Open site fits that description. Here are the next handful of venues that have been assigned:
2026: Shinnecock Hills Golf Club [McIlroy age: 37]
2027: Pebble Beach Golf Links
2028: Winged Foot Golf Club
2029: Pinehurst Resort (No. 2) [McIlroy age: 40]
2030: Merion Golf Club
2031: Riviera Country Club
2032: Pebble Beach Golf Links
2033: Oakmont Country Club
2034: Oakland Hills Country Club (South Course) [McIlroy age: 45]
2035: Pinehurst Resort (No. 2)
2036: Shinnecock Hills Golf Club
2037: Pebble Beach Golf Links
2038: The Country Club of Brookline
2039: Los Angeles Country Club [McIlroy age: 50]
2040: Merion Golf Club
2041: Pinehurst Resort (No. 2)
2042: Oakmont Country Club
2044: Pebble Beach Golf Links
2047: Pinehurst Resort (No. 2)
2049: Oakmont Country Club
2050: Merion Golf Club
2051: Oakland Hills Country Club
Focusing on only the next dozen sites, McIlroy will get three shots at Pebble, two at Shinny and one each at Winged Foot and Merion. McIlroy didn’t specifically call out any other venues, but surely Riviera, Oakmont and Oakland Hills would also fit his vision of a proper U.S. Open venue.
It’s not hard to like McIlroy’s chances of accomplishing goal No. 3 — and if he also were to pick off Nos. 1 and 2?
“I’m sure if I were to achieve those things, which geez, I hope that I do, I’d probably give you more stuff in four years’ time,” he said in Dubai this week. “I think when you’re a competitive person, that’s just the way you’re wired and sort of the way we operate.”
