Depending on your definition of success, it could be argued that no one is better than Rory McIlroy at the last 8 major championships. The Northern Irishman ranked T6 at the 2023 Open Championship, which is indeed one of the bottom halves of his record at majors over the past two years.
You read that correctly. Losing to five golfers at Royal Liverpool was one of his four the worst complete the major from 2022-23.
Overall, the numbers are staggering. With the exception of the 2023 Masters where he missed out, McIlroy has faced 1,019 opponents at seven other major tournaments over the past two years and ranks higher than 993 of them (97.4%). Playing seven pro tournaments with only 26 golfers total (3.7 each) leaving you unable to win even a single trophy is amazing.
It goes deeper than that, though. Even if you throw in the lousy Masters he played this April, McIlroy has led all players in key points over the past two years. A total of 36 golfers played in each of the eight most recent majors, but only 10 combined to play them below par (including their scores at the time of the slippage). Those 10 golfers:
- Rory McIlroy: -41
- Scottie Scheffler: -36
- Cameron Smith: -21
- Viktor Hovland: -14
- Matt Fitzpatrick: -13
- Tommy Fleetwood: -12
- Jon Rahm: -11
- Xander Schauffele: -8
- Young Cameron: -8
- Shane Lowry: -2
Four of those men have won major tournaments since 2022 (Scheffler, Smith, Fitzpatrick and Rahm). McIlroy is one of only six people who failed to do that, finishing second twice, third once and placing in the top eight out of seven of those eight majors.
How much do you want to relax this theme? McIlroy’s T6 at Hoylake is his 30th top 10 after 59 major catches (50.1%) and 20th of 34 starts since he last won a major in 2014 (58.8%).
For context, in Tiger Woods’ first 59 major catches, he scored 34 top 10 hits (57.6%). Phil Mickelson scored 25 goals in his first 59 appearances (42.4%). Brooks Koepka has 18 in 38 starts, which means he needs to go 12 in his next 21 just to match McIlroy.
Rory’s numbers are all in line with some of the greatest players of all time and are sometimes hard to reconcile with his main total, which has remained at four out of nine years.
Over the course of his career, it’s been relatively easier to accomplish what Brian Harman did last week than what McIlroy has done over the past two years. Historically, we’ve seen so many golfers burn through 72 holes and achieve feats they could never repeat. That happens.
What Are not happens to be, by definition, playing at McIlroy’s level for two years in a row. Eight golfers can win eight majors. Only one can be the best in total.
The most frustrating part about golf is that the hardest thing to accomplish is often not the most rewarding.
What’s encouraging about McIlroy is that he’s getting closer to winning his fifth major title. So many of those top 10 from 2015-21 are of the non-competitive category: Sunday 66 to finish T7 but no real chance to win.
Some were ultimately different. Rory led the 2022 PGA Championship after Round 1. He led the 150th Open Championship with 12 holes remaining. He went to war with Wyndham Clark at the 2023 US Open, ultimately losing by one stroke. He’s been hanging around with the non-Harman lead all week at Hoylake. If most of those 30 heads went through the back door, then these heads at least passed through a side or perhaps front entrance.
In addition to his four major wins, McIlroy’s three most important performances when came in the last two years. Consider this: From 2015-21, his projected grand total is 0.20, according to Data Golf. (Over the course of 26 professional tournaments, it was assumed he would win a fifth of the main tournament based on his play.) Over the past two years, the expected win total has skyrocketed to 0.92; Statistically, he is expected to win one of the last eight games he played.
One might assume that McIlroy’s last two years were the same as the rest, but that’s simply not true.
Golf Data
It doesn’t extrapolate that data. If McIlroy continues this form over the course of the next 2 years over the next 10 years, two or three major titles will eventually go his way. And if they do? Well, all of a sudden, he’s no longer tied to Jim Barnes and Bobby Locke on the all-time most important list with four. Instead, he equals Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead with seven points.
“For the past two years, I’d love to pick one of those I’ve finished with [on the leaderboard]? Sure,” McIlroy said. “But every time I tee off — or most times I tee off — I’m there. I can’t sit here and get so frustrated. My game is… you think about my performance in the pro leagues from 2016 to 2019, it’s so much better than that. 1690239003. Again, I’m optimistic about the future and just keep plugging in.”
It may sound strange, but McIlroy is probably imitating Mickelson’s career the most. Although their big win timelines are opposite, their overall achievements are similar.
|
Rory McIlroy (career) |
4 |
29% |
|
Phil Mickelson (as of 2016) |
5 |
28% |
McIlroy has 17 shots in the top 5 of his career. This is a better indication of being close to winning the majors than looking at the top 10. He finishes in the top 5 29% of the time. It’s a great ratio, and it fits well with Mickelson’s. Lefty had 29 top hand strokes in 121 starts at major championships, a rate of 24%. However, if you want to go back to late 2016 when Mickelson was 45 years old – 11 years older than current McIlroy – and nearly won the title against Henrik Stenson at the Royal Troon, his odds were 28%. This is more iconic to his overall career. Although he has two top-flight games (including one win!) since 2016, that percentage has dropped dramatically as he gets older and will continue to do so until he retires.
Rory has long been referred to as the “Next Tiger”. It is (obviously?) incorrect. No one is the “next” Tiger; maybe no one will. But Rory could have a career that rivals Phil, one of the 10-12 greatest golfers of all time and a historic figure in the sport.
The formula for non-Tiger superstars to win major championships is as follows: Get as competitive as possible, and a few will fall to you. Can Phil win more than he does? Of course. He could have won three US Opens, that Open before Stenson and possibly another Masters. Can he lose more than he does? Absolute. That’s the way specialization goes. Sometimes, leaders falter and you trip over a coat. Sometimes the cup looks as wide as the River Dee and Harman creates everything he looks at.
Of course McIlroy understands this. He knows the way he plays in the current pro leagues – if sustained – will lead to a few more titles in addition to the four he already owns.
The current rhetoric about what McIlroy should or shouldn’t try is interesting. Basically, he takes four shots to get six majors. Rory shouldn’t do anything but exactly what he’s doing. It was a conversation worth having for most of the previous seven years, but in the last two years he has proven his mettle.
The flip side of this is that he’s now missed the best chances he’s had to win a major since 2014. How many of those does one person get? Maybe it’s the beautiful chaos of it. If he keeps playing like this, McIlroy will have a lot of opportunities. But can one person play like this for another 10 years? At 34, that seems ambitious.
“Rory has to bring his ‘A’ game,” three-time major winner Padraig Harrington said Sunday at Hoylake. “That’s all. I’ve seen him drop quite a bit in the position I’ve placed this week, and I can tell you, that’s terrible. He’s not going to be able to win those ranked tournaments this week. There are too many good players for you to play and not have all your matches being decent and some of your matches being really good. four of them. five.”
Four a year. Amid all the changes that have happened in golf, that has remained the same. Even golf’s best stars have only won four of the biggest prizes in the sport. That’s the frustrating part of it but also what makes it so engaging and awesome.
