Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He's achieved the first, now on to the second

USA Today

12 hours ago

Lynch: Rory McIlroy had three goals in 2025. He's achieved the first, now on to the second
OAKMONT, Pa. — Twenty-odd years ago, I sat with Ian Woosnam on a golf cart at Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Woosie is the practically-minded son of a Welsh farmer and not given to deep reflection, but on one question he was. He told me he could pinpoint exactly — to the day — when his career decline began.
It was April 14, 1991, the day he won the Masters.
Woosnam had two goals in his golfing life, other than making a living (his autobiography, Woosie, ends every chapter with a summary of his earnings per season). One dream was to win a major championship. The other was to be the best in the world. On April 8, six days before winning at Augusta National, he reached No. 1 in the official world golf ranking. Two dreams checked off in one week.
'Other people go looking for another mountain to climb,' he told me that day at Kiawah Island. 'I just slid down the other side.'
There were 11 more wins on the European Tour, but only one real shot at another major, a decade later in the Open at Royal Lytham, when two drivers in the bag doomed him to a penalty and a tie for 3rd. But the fire that took a diminutive blue-collar guy from hitting balls during winter in his dad's barn to the pinnacle of a white collar sport was extinguished.
I thought back to that conversation these past two weeks, listening to Rory McIlroy. Thirty-four years after Woosnam, McIlroy achieved his lifetime dream and completed the career grand slam. The emotion that drained from him on the 18th green and on the walk to the clubhouse — so poignant as to keep the CBS announce team respectfully silent — spoke volumes about what it meant.
Shortly afterward, an elated McIlroy opened his press conference with a question that poked fun at the previous decade of inquiries about whether he would win a green jacket: 'What are we all going to talk about next year?'
The answer, it turns out, was this: What else ya got? And when ya got it?
McIlroy never took time to fully process that seismic accomplishment. Ten days later, he was at the Zurich Classic playing with Shane Lowry, having made a trip to London and Northern Ireland in between. Then it was on to the Truist Championship and straight into another major at the PGA Championship. By comparison, when Tiger Woods won the Masters in '97, and also in '19, he did not make a competitive appearance for five weeks.
McIlroy has been asked what comes next several times since the Masters,. Even earlier this week at Oakmont, he was asked what his plan is for the coming years. 'I don't have one. I have no idea,' he said. 'I'm sort of just taking it tournament by tournament at this point. Yeah, I have no idea.'
It was disarmingly honest, but alarming for those who fetishize the mentality epitomized by Tiger Woods, a single-mindedness that moves shark-like between feasts without enjoyment or even digestion. It's a sentiment that celebrates racking up accomplishments, but not of taking actual pleasure in those victories. Earlier this year, McIlroy said one of his goals for '25 was to have more fun. It's why he went to a soccer game in Bilbao with friends, why he wants to play in India and Australia later this year. Yet somewhere along the way, he denied himself the time to have fun celebrating the greatest achievement of his career.
Now, a minor hangover of sorts has kicked in. "You dream about the final putt going in at the Masters, but you don't think about what comes next,' he said a few days ago. 'I think I've always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament. I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you've just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it and you want to sort of relish the fact that you've achieved a goal. Chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I'm allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit.'
The schedule doesn't allow much time for relaxation or reflection, even if he had been minded to pursue it. Two majors have passed with not much of an impact, a tie for 47th at Quail Hollow and lingering around the top 25 at Oakmont as the final round wound down.
In a casual conversation a few months back, he summarized his objectives for the year: win the Masters, win the Open at Royal Portrush, win an away Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. As he prepared to leave Pittsburgh, McIlroy acknowledged fresh motivation is on the horizon for the second item on that list.
'If I can't get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don't know what can motivate me,' he said. 'I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven't been there the last few weeks. But as I said, getting home and having a couple weeks off before that, hopefully feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, will get me in the right place again.'
Just 63 days have passed since that victorious evening at Augusta National. Only 32 remain until balls are in the air at the 153rd Open. Maybe that hasn't been enough time to celebrate realizing a dream 30 years in the making, but it's probably enough to narrow the focus to knocking off the second item on his target list for '25.