PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – There’s a warning sign on the 18th tee box at Pebble Beach that might as well serve as a tip, of course.
“DO NOT SIT IN THE CAR.”
The genius of Pebble beach exists in extremes. Drunk rocks and foreboding surfing and big dunes and small greens. Of the many skills required to thrive here, determination is perhaps the most important. On the 18th tee box and the winner’s fairway on the 18th green, there is no lowering of the fence.
Rory McIlroy knows this better than most. Anyone with a little golf in their soul knew what McIlroy meant last February when he suggested that winning at Pebble Beach for the first time meant a little more.
“There are some that I would call the cathedrals of golf,” McIlroy said then. “Here, Augusta, St. Andrews—maybe a few more you can add in there. I had a big fat zero for everybody coming in here. To knock one down at Pebble is pretty cool.”
Of course, anyone with a little golf in their soul also knows what came after that win at Pebble Beach: a third career win at The Players Championship and then a career-changing, sports-shocking, Grand Slam-clinching victory in the Masters.
When the tomes are written, that final victory at Augusta will be remembered as the one that slammed the door on McIlroy. But it can be said that his first the 2025 victory, at Pebble Beach, was what broke the lock.
“I’m a big historian of the game and I remember all the championships that have been played here,” McIlroy said afterwards, eerily foreshadowing the history he would soon make at Augusta. “And adding my name to that list is pretty cool.”
Now, in 2026, the historian is back in the library. With no further major championships to conquer and no additional Ryder Cups to win, McIlroy has been forced to reset his goals. And in doing so, he had the opportunity to face a new question: What “cathedrals” come next?
On Friday at Pebble Beach, the same day McIlroy shot five under to move into weekend contention, the Grand Slam winner faced that question for the first time.
“There are places I haven’t won that I’d like to,” McIlroy said. “St. Andrews is one of them. Riviera next week would be another. Riviera and Muirfield Village are two. They’re great golf courses, but so are the eventers. You know, Tiger and Jack. I’ve been able to win Bay Hill, but not when Arnie was around, so it would be nice to win both tournaments while they’re both alive and running.”
And perhaps the biggest outstanding win on McIlroy’s list? Only the premier venue of the sport’s most elusive championship: the home of golf.
“There are a lot of golf courses with a lot of history. There are a lot of old US Open sites that have had some great things on them,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, that’s certainly one, Augusta was another one, and the last one I think—not the last one, but the biggest one on the list would probably be St. Andrews.”
McIlroy will likely have at least one more chance to close out a major win on the Old Course in the prime of his playing career. That will come in 2027, when the golf world returns to St. Andrews for Open 155, just after his 38th birthday.
These are champagne aspirations to be sure, but it would be foolish to dismiss them as trivial. As McIlroy learned at Pebble Beach last February (and again at Augusta National in April), breakthroughs often come in multiples.
And when it comes to choosing his spots? Well, McIlroy is certainly not sitting on the fence.
