Rory McIlroy’s 2024 season has not lived up to his expectations.
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ATLANTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy was walking the ninth hole at East Lake Golf Club Wednesday afternoon as he struggled to find the words to sum up his PGA Tour season. But after a moment he stopped talking and made a noise, something like that gatherslightly withdrawn, like air released from a balloon.
It was hot in Atlanta. Hot hot. Ninety-four degrees and climbing, baking from the sun, the air sitting still, it all inspires a certain regret. Mostly McIlroy was in good spirits, enjoying a walk and a match with Shane Lowry, perhaps his closest friend on Tour. The course was empty in front of them – a 30-player field doesn’t do much to fill a sheet with practice sets – so they progressed at their own pace, slowing down on the greens to hit extra chips around the new ball. surfaces. For him followersevery shot counts this week; even for someone who has cashed as many checks as McIlroy, a $25 million first-place prize is an eye-catcher.
But the Tour Championship is also a reminder of your year, of what happened and what would have happened, and for McIlroy the gap between those two things has been meaningful this year. Hence the exhaled sigh.
“I feel like I played better golf than the results suggest,” he continued. “I had a very good chance to earn another degree. I think I’ve had, you know, some good wins and whatever, but it’s…”
Here he left. Anything after “another big” was unconvincing. That was all whatever. This is the curse of McIlroy’s success, his expectations and his shortcomings. Every year now feels like a hit or miss, including this year where he has the same number of worldwide wins (three) as finishes outside the top 25.
It goes without saying that this isn’t the standard for most golfers, nor should it be – there are few Tour pros satisfied enough as it is. Lowry, for one, is content just to have qualified for the tournament championship. “Almost embarrassing I wasn’t here,” he joked. “I’ve been pro for a long time and whatever.” But for McIlroy it is different. Because of his talent level. Because of his four degrees, he won in a row. Because of the time that has passed since winning the fourth. Because he’s won everything else in the decade since.
His discontent does not make the victories meaningless. McIlroy enjoyed his victory at the Zurich Classic with Lowry as his teammate. He also enjoyed his next start, a statement win at Quail Hollow, where he chased down Xander Schauffele on Sunday and played some of his best golf in recent memory. But Schauffele brought it back the next week at the PGA Championship, which counted extra. This turned out to be the theme of the year.
“You know, looking at what Scottie (Scheffler) and Xander (Schauffele) have done this year — I’m third in the world rankings, but I feel like a distant third,” McIlroy said. Scheffler has six wins plus Olympic gold in 2024. Schauffele picked up two championships and one more top-five boat. “You know, they’ve had great years, and I look at my year compared to them and, I mean, it doesn’t compare.”
It’s been easy to see McIlroy on the edge in recent weeks, driven by a lot of swinging thoughts and late-summer lethargy in, say, Memphis, Tenn. He played particularly poorly there in the first round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, beating almost no one. Even at BMW in Denver — a tour he says he thoroughly enjoyed — his frustration bubbled over; he dropped his stick in the water in a hole and leaned on it so hard that plucked in another. It’s hard to know how much of McIlroy’s personal life is going public this summer. But even sticking to the heartbreak, it’s easy to trace that impatience directly to the biggest disappointment of the year, the final three holes at Pinehurst, where he left the US Open. slide from his capture.
McIlroy isn’t the only one here battling exhaustion and eyeing the finish line. Scheffler HAD a short fuse in Denver as well. Even the stoic Schauffele spoke of the dangers of his “bucket of patience” being a little empty.
“Yeah, I can feel myself going over the edge faster, more frustrated faster,” Schauffele said. “You have to control yourself a lot whenever you try to compete.” Easier said than done.
McIlroy admitted he feels frustrated by golf’s progress this season, too. It was two years ago this time that McIlroy was leading the Tour’s charge for a revitalized product. He got energy from being in that mix, from the effect of change, from the fight for his future. In recent months he has called for the golf world to unite, but that hasn’t gotten over things; PIF-PGA Tour talks drag on, no end in sight. It’s easy to get frustrated with your lack of progress.
“More of the same, I guess,” he said, asked for a summary of the year for the sport. “I thought more progress would have been made, which is unfortunate. I think at this point, everybody’s just getting sick of it, just getting tired of it. It’s just a bit of a cloud over golf. But a very special cloud, you know?
“I wish more had been done, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of will from some people to try to fix it.”
Do you still feel the need to put things together? Earlier in the day, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said that, although the two sides are at the table, Turi is also moving “full speed ahead” with its product. The implication was clear: we don’t need this. But McIlroy believes the reunion brings with it a higher ceiling.
“Yes. I mean, I was on the wrong track, but look at the numbers that Bryson and I did at Pinehurst,” he said, referring to the huge US Open TV ratings as the two battled to the finish. “That’s what it takes. to happen.
“(LIV) have a lot of personalities, you know. The PGA Tour, I mean, we’re here trying to create the best product. You need villains.
“Otherwise it can get flat.”
