The 6-time major winner doesn’t like Rory McIlroy’s future major prospects

Rory McIlroy battled a much talked about drought ahead of him The masters triumph Last April, though a golf legend now says it will be “difficult” for McIlroy to catch more headlines in the future.

Talking to Belfast Telegraphsix-time major champion Nick Faldo, who, like McIlroy, played for the European Ryder Cup team, said it will be difficult for McIlroy to repeat the emotional level he reached when he won the Masters and completed a career Grand Slam earlier this year.

“It’s like climbing Everest, you don’t come back and say, ‘Let’s climb again next month,'” Faldo said, when asked if he expects McIlroy to win more majors. “There was so much excitement at Augusta and you can’t replicate the excitement of winning a major like that again, so I think it will be difficult for Rory to win another one.”

McIlroy himself has explained the challenges Faldo alluded to.

“Look, you dream about that last shot going into the Masters, but you don’t think about what comes next,” McIlroy said at the US Open in June. “I think I’ve always been a player who struggles to play after a big event, having won every tournament. I always try to come in motivated next week because you’ve just achieved something and you want to enjoy it and you want to kind of enjoy the fact that you’ve achieved a goal.”

After securing the green jacket, McIlroy did not win again on the PGA Tour in 2025, although he won the Irish Open in September and was a key member of the European Ryder Cup team’s victory at Bethpage Black.

He is 36 years old now and has five major titles, including the slam. And while it’s easy to suggest that it would be difficult for him to find that drive to win more majors, as Faldo did, the opposite scenario could seemingly play out just as easily: McIlroy could play free without pressure.

“He’s either going to be disappointed that he’s won 10 or he’s going to be thrilled that he’s made it to five,” Faldo said.

In the same interview, while Faldo said McIlroy could be in a tough spot to win more, he raved about the prospects of world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.

“Scottie seems to be very clear right now,” Faldo said. “He’s in that great moment where he believes in his game 100 percent. It’s like Tiger. Scottie is in that nice mindset and routine of going into every tournament thinking, ‘How can I find a way to win this?’ While the other guys are just trying to get to Sunday. Some guys are choking on Thursday, but Scottie is without a choke right now, which is amazing.”

You can read full Belfast Telegraph story with Faldo here.

As for McIlroy, you can see him in action this week. He’s doing it as a starter at the Australian Open.