logo
Rory McIlroy admits struggling for motivation after legacy-defining Masters success as he reveals 'reset' ahead of US Open

Rory McIlroy admits struggling for motivation after legacy-defining Masters success as he reveals 'reset' ahead of US Open

Daily Mail​2 days ago

Rory McIlroy has admitted to struggling for motivation since his legacy-defining win at the Masters in April.
Having finally completed the full set of major titles at Augusta, the world No 2 finished a disappointing 47th at the PGA Championship last month and has now spoken about the come-down from his career high.
Speaking at the Canadian Open, where he is defending his title ahead of next week's US Open, McIlroy said: 'The last few weeks I've had a couple weeks off, and grinding on the range for three or four hours every day is maybe a little tougher than it used to be.
'You have this event in your life that you've worked towards and it happens, sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.'
The five-time major winner added: 'I think the last two weeks have been good for me just as a reset, just to sort of figure out where I'm at in my own head, what I want to do, where I want to play.
'I thought it was a good time to reset some goals. I've had a pretty good first half of the season, and I want to have a good second half of the season now, too.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

For the USMNT, a successful summer is harder than ever to define
For the USMNT, a successful summer is harder than ever to define

The Guardian

time33 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

For the USMNT, a successful summer is harder than ever to define

In a certain sense, there really is no winning the Concacaf Gold Cup. Not if you're the United States men's national team, at any rate. While the tournament's name may allude to a glory conferred by the most valuable of precious metals, the whole thing remains among the ugly ducklings of global continental championships. If you're the US, lifting the biennial Gold Cup this summer would amount to winning it for an eighth time overall and a sixth in a quarter century. There's no novelty to it, no real sense of upward momentum on the long-sought ascent to a higher international plane. Fail to win it, however, and there will be an inquest and existential questions, even though this incarnation of the American roster is missing a half dozen-or-so key pieces, depending on how you count them. But if the optics of the Gold Cup are zero-sum, it retains an intrinsic value to the Yanks less in the thing itself than in what it simulates: a World Cup. Squint, and pretend that you're playing, say, Poland and South Korea instead of Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago, and there's something useful in going through the cadence of a competitive summer tournament. Even if the opponents are just the same old regional foes – fellow Group D denizens Saudi Arabia excepted, as they're a guest team – the slow boil and gathering momentum of an unspooling tournament offers helpful experience. Certainly, the hope was that the 2025 Gold Cup would be an exercise in putting the finishing touches on a supposed golden generation, positioning all the pieces just so as the team prepared for a career-defining summer next year while hosting the 2026 World Cup. Going through a tournament one last time would be a final chance to spot and address the flaws and fissures in the foundation. Winning it, if at all possible, would be a kind of byproduct of all that finessing and finetuning. Instead, the Americans will spend the summer trying to rehabilitate their battered reputation after March's Concacaf Nations League debacle. The discourse will probably be dominated by who isn't there as much as who is. Yet there can still be some real use in this exercise. It's even feasible that the USMNT could have a good summer by showing some signs of life. 'I don't think there's any denying that some of our performances have fallen short over the past year to 18 months,' said defender Walker Zimmerman. 'It's something that us, as players, we obviously aren't satisfied with, and it's a big focal point for this camp. It's always such a great opportunity to have a month in front of the staff, get a lot of quality trainings in together, and find yourself hopefully getting into a rhythm of playing multiple games where you can put everything on the line to try to make a World Cup team in a year's time. It's a massive opportunity.' All the absences underscore just how prone a summer tournament is to the flukes of form and fitness. But head coach Mauricio Pochettino has a chance to scour his overhauled roster for a few new depth pieces and tactical alternatives in among all the fresh faces, sourced in unexpected number from Major League Soccer. The USMNT's lineup has been largely ossified going back a half decade or so now, and when given a chance, more pleasant surprises like Real Salt Lake's spitfire midfielder Diego Luna might well present themselves. Or players who can offer the American attack a different look anyway, on the semi-regular days when Plan A isn't working. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion Then there are the players who have accomplished resumes at the club level but, for whatever reason, just not really shown it for the national team yet. Malik Tillman, the Bayern Munich castoff, has established himself as one of the best players in the Dutch Eredivisie in an attacking midfielder role where the U.S. could really use a spark. While contributing hugely to PSV's second straight league title, however, Tillman has been largely anonymous for the national team. This is also true of the New Jersey-born, Brazilian-raised Johnny Cardoso who, like Tillman, is 23. So impressive in his season-and-a-half with Real Betis has Cardoso been that a move to mighty Atlético Madrid is reportedly imminent. With a full national team complement in camp, Tillman and Cardoso would have gotten lost in the shuffle, either the odd men out in the midfield logjam or pushed out of their best positions. Here, now, is a chance for them to make their case, or at least pose some questions about whether the incumbents really ought to be automatic starters. The importance of identity and tactical systems probably gets overstated at the national team level, where a dearth of time means that an awful lot of teams play broadly the same way. But the coming month does offer Pochettino a chance to cultivate some of the closeness and feistiness that his best club teams displayed. There is perhaps a larger exploration to be undertaken at some point about the ways in which the improved conditions and job security of the modern American player have undercut the existential belligerence the Yanks used to play with, but, for now, any kind of low-level aggravation will do. Some bite. A little more getting-after-it intensity, even when the stadium is half-empty and the opponent unthreatening, on paper at least. There would be as much value in unlocking any of those intangibles as there would in winning the Gold Cup, even if that's the macro expectation. 'I think I'd be lying if I didn't say, 'Lifting that trophy on the final day' would be what we would consider success. I think that's the standard we've set for ourselves,' said goalkeeper Matt Turner. 'But at the same time, things happen in soccer, and I think what we need to control is what we bring to the table every single day: the intensity, the way we push each other, the passion, the energy, the connection with the fans, with each other, with the staff. We're going to be together for a long period of time and it's a really good opportunity for us to put a lot of things together, tactically, technically, emotionally.' Taken together, these alternative accomplishments would probably make for a satisfying summer of national team soccer. They might even compensate for a failure to win the Gold Cup. Leander Schaerlaeckens is at work on a book about the United States men's national soccer team, out in 2026. He teaches at Marist University.

Brit athletics champion, 81, is a MONK who took 70 YEARS to claim first gold after ‘nearly collapsing' on first run
Brit athletics champion, 81, is a MONK who took 70 YEARS to claim first gold after ‘nearly collapsing' on first run

Scottish Sun

time43 minutes ago

  • Scottish Sun

Brit athletics champion, 81, is a MONK who took 70 YEARS to claim first gold after ‘nearly collapsing' on first run

SIGN OF THE CROSSFIT Brit athletics champion, 81, is a MONK who took 70 YEARS to claim first gold after 'nearly collapsing' on first run Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A MARATHON monk has become a British athletics champion after SEVENTY YEARS despite 'nearly collapsing' on his first run. Father John Gribben is a sprightly 81 years old and can now claim to be top of his field after winning a gold medal at the British Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 2 A sprightly elderly monk has become a gold medal British athletics champion Credit: Guzelian 2 Father John Gribben, 81, is known as the 'sprinting monk' Credit: Guzelian Known as the 'sprinting monk' among parishioners, he won the 400 metre dash in two minutes, three seconds and 190 milliseconds. Gribben also secured bronze medals in the 60 metre and 200 metre events in London. But it took him 70 long years to finally achieve running stardom, with Gribben's first attempt at the sport coming in the 1950s. That didn't exactly go to plan, with octogenarian admitting he could barely stand up straight after a half-mile effort. READ MORE IN ATHLETICS HURD MENTALITY Fans stunned at how sprinter finished race after falling over final hurdle He told The Times: 'I nearly collapsed after that first run. I said, 'I'm not a runner', but I never stopped after it.' Gribben started to master the art of running when he moved to Mirfield, West Yorkshire, in 1979 — where he remains to this day. And like any good athlete, Gribben dedicates himself to a gruelling mid-week training schedule. He explained: 'Three nights at least of a 5km run, most days I'll do a 60 metre sprint, and then the other things are an hour at the local gym a couple of days a week.' The Belfast native, who attended a theological college in Dublin, mainly gets his racing kicks at Greenhead Park's Parkrun in Huddersfield. He's since completed over 250 events, boasting an impressive 5km Personal Best of 26 minutes. I'm a parkrun fanatic - here are my top 10 tips for first-timers as the event turns 20 Gribben, who takes TWO buses to reach the course, started attending when he was nearly 70 years old. He now runs 5km in around 40 minutes, and those Saturday morning slogs finally paid dividends when he clinched gold at the Masters. Gribben also revealed the spiritual kick he gets from running, adding: 'There's something in the spring, you hit one point where it is ecstasy, you're outside yourself almost, when you hit that speed that carries you the last whatever you need to get to the line. 'Sometimes I just say to my saviour, 'Well I'll run if you run with me'. 'I don't know that I get an answer but… I start putting on my trainers and it feels good to do.'

Rory McIlroy makes key change to his bag ahead of US Open after failed PGA test
Rory McIlroy makes key change to his bag ahead of US Open after failed PGA test

Daily Record

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Record

Rory McIlroy makes key change to his bag ahead of US Open after failed PGA test

The Grand Slam superstar has a new driver in the bag ahead of next week's US Open Superstar Rory McIlroy has made a major driver change just weeks after his non-conforming drama at the PGA Championship. The Northern Irish star admitted he was 'p****d off' after news leaked that his main weapon had failed a routine test at Quail Hollow. ‌ McIlroy had to change just prior to the event and didn't show his usual sparkle off the tees as he toiled down the field behind winner Scottie Scheffler. ‌ The career Grand Slam star is now back into competition mode at the RBC Canadian Open after being absent since the PGA with a new and different driver in the bag. McIlroy started out at TPC Toronto with a TaylorMade Qi35 driver and had reasonable success with nine out of 14 fairways hit on day one, despite a frustrating opening effort of one-over par. The work will continue ahead of next week's US Open at Oakmont as the five-times Major winner aims to make it half a dozen in Pennsylvania and made up for last year's heartbreaking loss on the final green to Bryson DeChambeau at Pinehurst. McIlroy reflected on using the new tool on day one in Canada as he said: 'It's hard with the driver. With the one I had been playing with previously, my miss with it was a little bit left. "And then my miss with this one is a little bit right, so it's just trying to figure out that and manage it a little bit. ‌ 'But a nice feeling to be able to aim up the middle of the fairway and fully release it and know it's not going to go left on you.' McIlroy starts out on day two with a job to make the weekend's play as he currently sits 10 shots behind leaders Thorbjorn Olesen and Cristobal Del Solar and fighting to make the cut with a current position of tied-199th on the standings. You can get all the news you need on our dedicated Rangers and Celtic pages, and sign up to our newsletters to make sure you never miss a beat throughout the season. We're also on WhatsApp where we bring all the latest breaking news and transfer gossip directly to you phone. Join our Rangers community here and our Celtic community here.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store