Lydia Ko understands Rory McIlroy's existential post-Masters plight
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FRISCO, Texas — Rory McIlroy’s historic Masters win was supposed to bring him everything he wanted. It was supposed to free him up and make the resilient star who had spent years getting his heart shattered whole again.
Instead, when McIlroy collapsed to the ground at Augusta National and released 14 years (maybe a lifetime) of pent-up emotions into the air, it was not self fulfillment that he found. Shedding the weight of time and expectation instead brought him another question.
“Look, you dream about the final putt going in at the Masters, but you don’t think about what comes next,” McIlroy said prior to last week’s 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont. “I think I’ve always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament. I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you’ve just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it and you want to sort of relish the fact that you’ve achieved a goal. I think chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I’m allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit.
“I think it’s trying to have a little bit of amnesia and forget about what happened six weeks ago,” McIlroy said that same day. “Then just trying to find the motivation to go back out there and work as hard as I’ve been working. I worked incredibly hard on my game from October last year all the way up until April this year. It was nice to sort of see the fruits of my labor come to fruition and have everything happen. But at the same time, you have to enjoy that. You have to enjoy what you’ve just accomplished. I certainly feel like I’m still doing that and I will continue to do that.”
The thing McIlroy found with his dreams secured is an existential question all humans struggle with. Human beings, by and large, are not meant to be fulfilled by one thing. Self-actualization doesn’t come with a singular achievement. Rather we are wired to be constant searchers, always lusting after the next thing. How do you find fulfillment if there can always be more, always something else to chase?
When David Duval won the 2001 Open Championship he famously wondered on the plane ride home if that was “it.” Kevin Durant didn’t find what he thought he would when he won his first NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors. It is, in some sense, an endless quest.
Last summer, there Lydia Ko stood with tears streaming down her face at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. With a gold medal draped around her neck, Ko, who had been one of women’s golf’s great stars for over a decade, had become a Hall of Famer with a dazzling display in Paris. A few weeks later, her whirlwind summer continued when she won the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews. As our Sean Zak chronicled in a sit-down with Ko, the 28-year-old had summited another mountain.
Now a Hall of Famer after the summer of a lifetime, Ko found what McIlroy is now traversing.
“I think I thought my life or maybe the way I thought about myself would change when I got in the Hall of Fame and did a lot of the things I wanted to do before it actually happened, and I’m sure Rory is thinking the same in similar parts, where everybody was like, oh, Masters is the one he was missing. Like what if? And then he did it,” Ko said Tuesday at PGA Frisco ahead of the 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. “And as much as I’m sure he’s so happy and relieved, he’s just as good the day before, like before he won it.
“I think that’s what I kind of came to peace with. I think sometimes when it’s right there in front of you and see all these statistics, you feel like you should do more. I think that some of the things we’ve already gotten, we take for granted. I think that’s what I realized most, and that’s what made me realize I’ve still got to go out there and practice and put in the time to play well the week after.”
For those like Ko and McIlroy, who have ascended to the top of their craft, there’s always “more.” That’s what makes them who they are. The key is to do what Ko did — and what McIlroy is trying to do —and balance the pride in what you’ve done while not feeling empty because there’s a desire for more.
“I’m pretty sure he wanted to win the U.S. Open when he teed it up,” Ko said. “It’s the same. We’re greedy in that sense, like nothing will fulfill us fully until we’re done. I think that’s — I don’t think that’s a bad way of putting it. I think that’s the reason why we play. That’s why he’s at his level because of his competitiveness.”
McIlroy finished with a Sunday 3-under 67 at Oakmont and sounded optimistic about the path out of his malaise and toward a new mountain to summit when he arrives at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush next month.
“If I can’t get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don’t know what can motivate me,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, as I said, I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven’t been there the last few weeks.
“I climbed my Everest in April, and I think after you do something like that, you’ve got to make your way back down, and you’ve got to look for another mountain to climb. An Open at Portrush is certainly one of those.”
As for Ko, she faces a career Grand Slam quest of her own this week at the KPMG Women’s PGA at Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco. Ko has won the Women’s Open Championship, the Evian and the ANA Inspiration (now called the Chevron Championship). While it has five majors, the LPGA classifies any player to win four majors as a career Grand Slam winner. Karrie Webb is the only player to win the super career Grand Slam (five different majors).
Ko has said that the career Grand Slam is five in her book. While she needs to win both the U.S. Women’s Open and the KPMG Women’s PGA to achieve that goal, this tournament sticks out in her mind as one to win.
“I feel like KPMG Women’s PGA championship is one that I feel like I could/should win with the type of golf courses we play,” Ko said. “I saw Meg Mallon and Beth Daniel yesterday and said, hopefully I can join you at the champions dinner someday and have a dinner menu curated by me.
“It would be pretty awesome,” Ko said later of envisioning herself hoisting the trophy this week in Frisco. “I was talking to my caddie about this, and I was like, I shouldn’t have won the British Open. That’s where I probably had not the best record going into St Andrews last year, especially coming off the week at Olympics a couple weeks prior. So if I made the impossible possible, I feel like as long as I’m playing good golf and I’m smart and I’m committed out there, hopefully I can give myself opportunities. Whether this is the one or maybe future sites, I’m not really sure, but I do really like it out here.”
The key might lie in what she found after summiting the mountain that put her into the Hall of Fame: peace in the chase.
“I feel like I’m enjoying playing a lot more these days than before, and it just puts me in a better mindset where I’m not frustrated and stressed out as much,” Ko said. “When things are on the line, things can change. There were a lot of emotions at the U.S. Open last year, but I think it just purely because it means a lot to all of us players, you just never know until that pressure and that moment comes.
“I think that’s the reason why we play for those kind of key moments.”
Josh Schrock is a writer and reporter for Golf.com. Before joining GOLF, Josh was the Chicago Bears insider for NBC Sports Chicago. He previously covered the 49ers and Warriors for NBC Sports Bay Area. A native Oregonian and UO alum, Josh spends his free time hiking with his wife and dog, thinking of how the Ducks will break his heart again, and trying to become semi-proficient at chipping. A true romantic for golf, Josh will never stop trying to break 90 and never lose faith that Rory McIlroy’s major drought will end (updated: he did it). Josh Schrock can be reached at josh.schrock@golf.com.
