Rory McIlroy’s post-Masters question leaves golf world in curious spot

FLOURTOWN, Pa. — Less than an hour after Rory McIlroy became the sixth man ever to win the career grand slam, he became the first man to state the obvious.

From the dais in the ornate press room at Augusta National, McIlroy looked out at the assembled press and laughed.

“What are we gonna talk about next year?”

McIlroy’s Augusta National failures had been the source of the golf media’s fascination for almost as long as he’d played in the event — an obsession that only grew after he won the remaining three legs of the career grand slam, and amplified with each year of Masters heartbreak. Now, with a green jacket draped over his shoulders, his comment was a playful jab: Let’s find a new storyline.

The beauty of one massive storyline ending is that multiple others can take its place. But that’s also a challenge. New narratives were a charge not just for future Masters, but for golf altogether. The win at Augusta was a historic exclamation point, delivering a sequence of iconic images that will stand the test of time in golf, but it was also the end of the sentence. One of golf’s largest and most compelling stories was closed, and a void had opened in the space that story once occupied.

At the Truist Championship, the last PGA Tour event before the major season picks up again in Charlotte, this was the Masters hangover. Not a golfer riding a historic high (by all accounts, McIlroy has seemed exceedingly himself in the weeks following the Masters celebration), but a sport in a moment of transition.

“I think Rory said it himself: What are you gonna talk about?” said Shane Lowry with a grin. “I don’t know — maybe you can talk about Jordan now. Or Scottie winning the grand slam.”

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What’s next in golf now that McIlroy’s career grand slam is off the table? Some, like Lowry, have suggested the narrative might shift to the golfers of the post-Rory generation, players like Jordan Spieth and still-younger Scottie Scheffler, who have grand slam aspirations of their own. But how about a true, one-year Grand Slam?

“He could be the next really great story … for the Grand Slam this year,” said Curtis Strange, who will call McIlroy’s back-to-back bid from Quail Hollow for ESPN next week. “What’s the next storyline? If Rory wins next week … he’s got two of the four in one year, and he is that kind of player that when he gets going he’s very, very explosive.”

“I can’t help but think of that line from the Joker, Heath Ledger, in The Dark Knight, where he says, ‘You have nothing to threaten me with,’” said Scott Van Pelt, who will call the tournament alongside Strange. “You have nothing to threaten Rory with now. You can’t hang that over his head. It’s not a decade of not winning. It’s not winning at Augusta. I have checked the boxes, and now I can just let it rip. I think that’ll be fascinating to see.”

A second (or third?) life of Rory McIlroy would not be surprising to anyone who has watched his near-misses at majors over the last decade. We’ve seen many other players, most recently Phil Mickelson, win in bunches after the major championship wall comes tumbling down. McIlroy’s next major start, Quail Hollow, comes at a golf course so adept for the five-time major champ that even his competitors can’t ignore it.

“Yeah, [I’ll win] at Rory McIlroy Country Club,” Spieth said dryly to McIlroy on Tuesday.

And then there’s the possibility that the next story to define golf has nothing to do with the action inside the ropes.

“I think the next decade will be that elephant in the room that the game hasn’t loved figuring that out — it’s got to be getting these people together more often,” Van Pelt said. “It’s a blast when we get a field like we get next week, and the game is better when we have it.”

Whatever the story is — or stories are — it seems clear it will soon identify itself. It’s funny, something always seems to happen the day after a world-stopping story occurs: the world keeps spinning anyway. Rory’s win might have shrunk the narrative pool, but it multiplied the sport. More fans will watch golf for his victory, more sponsors will enter the fold, more money will be made. The others in his orbit will grow as a result.

“There’s enough great storylines in golf,” McIlroy said Thursday with a grin. “Whether it be, like, Scottie won by a million last week and seems to be playing back to his best. You’ve got Jordan Spieth going for the career grand slam next week. You’ve got a lot of exciting stuff happening in the women’s game. There’s always great storylines in golf, and it certainly doesn’t just have to be about me.”

On Friday — and not for the first time this week — McIlroy referenced the golf ball flying too far for a classic host course like Philadelphia Cricket Club, a reminder that in this sport there are layers far beyond the Tour’s winners and losers.

So, how would McIlroy answer his own question from Augusta?

“Hopefully in two weeks time you’re talking about me being a six-time major champion instead of a five-time major champion,” he said with a laugh.

What’s golf talking about next? The story has changed — but the subject might not.