The 2025 Major Championship season sets up undeniably good for Rory Mcilroy.
The PGA Championship will be at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, where Mcilroy has won Wells Fargo Championship no less than four times. The open championship will return to Royal Portrush in his original Northern Ireland, where he once broke the course record by shooting a 61 at the age of 16.
But there is a major like Mcilroy obviously pines for above all. The only one missing in his resume – the one who would complete his sixth career Grand Slam in modern history.
Mcilroy arrives at Augusta National in such optimal form that we have to wonder – if 2025 is not the year he captures the champions, will it ever happen?
In order not to let the alarmist about one of the biggest golfers in this millennium, but Mcilroy has already seen many chances that NAB’s green jacket will come and go. He turns 36 next month, and although he does not have the damage to Tiger Woods, it is not reasonable to expect him to play this well forever.
Mcilroy comes in this week on top of the FedEx Cup position thanks to victories at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Players Championship, where he beat two incredibly strong fields. No one on the tour gets more strokes per round than him – Mcilroy puts it well and, as usual, strips everything from tee.
His second place 2022 and T-22 last year came in the shadow of champion Scottie Scheffler, who has been a tiger-esque dominant force in golf in recent years but has finally slowed down a bit. Scheffler has not yet won a tournament in 2025, and obviously left the door ever so little ajar for his main competition.
But we’ve done this dance before: “Watch out everyone, it’s Rory’s time!” His great championship has reached a full ten seasons and count, with a fascinating 21 top-10 end in Majors since his last breakthrough-in-line misses to make someone angry.
Whether he wins this week is entirely up to Mcilroy and what is between his ears. I know that if I blew chances to win back-to-back us opens-falls to Wyndham Clark and then Bryson Dichbeau-Skulle My Skin Start crawling when I reached the biggest scene in golf.
Mcilroy’s mental toughness is at the center of his plans for the week.
“It’s just stories. It’s noise,” he said Tuesday. “It’s just trying to block that noise as much as possible. I have to treat this tournament like any other tournaments that I play throughout the year.
“Look, I understand the story and the noise, and there is a lot of expectation and structure that comes into this tournament every year, but I just have to keep my head down and focus on my job.”
When Sergio Garcia won the champions for the first time in 2017, he did so in his 19th start – most attempts by any golfer before breaking through at Augusta. Thursday will highlight Mcilroys 17th career start.
I’m not saying he won’t win majors in the 40s – Woods and Jack Nicklaus did. But the Scheffler-led next generation is stronger than ever. “There is always next year” will no longer apply.
