Rory McIlroy’s impressive longevity on full display amid return to Valhalla seeking first major since 2014

On August 3, 2014, with a week to go until the PGA Championship at Valhalla, world No. 2 Rory McIlroy shot a final-round 66 to win the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational over world No. 5 Sergio Garcia.

On May 12, 2024, with a week to go until the PGA Championship at Valhalla, world No. 2 Rory McIlroy shot a final round 66 to win the Wells Fargo Championship over world No. 4 Xander Schauffele.

Between those two victories, over the course of an entire decade, McIlroy never left the top 16 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

When measuring a golfer’s career, the longevity of this caliber should not be underestimated.

It’s one thing to get into the OWGR top 10. Many golfers have done this. Hell, Alex Noren did it. The same happened with Brandt Snedeker, Keegan Bradley, David Howell and David Toms. If someone makes the top 10 in the OWGR, they are certainly an excellent golfer.

But what if you basically never let it go for 15 years straight?

McIlroy, who first broke into the top 10 in late 2009, has rarely ventured above that mark since (and never higher than 20th). In that sense, Rory is almost unrivaled in the game; people like Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Viktor Hovland – picking three tremendously talented pairs – failed to achieve that goal. (Dustin Johnson managed a 12-year run in the OWGR top 25, only to crash when moving to LIV Golf.)

The kind of longevity McIlroy is displaying is contextualized in 26 career PGA Tour victories, the latest of which he achieved on Sunday at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship. There are only 15 other golfers who have won that many times (or more) on the PGA Tour, with most of his victories coming since World War II. Most of them have unique names, like Rory.

Here are the next five McIlroy is chasing on the all-time wins leaderboard: Lloyd Mangrum (36), Vijay Singh (34), Jimmy Demaret (31), Gene Littler and Lee Trevino (29).

McIlroy returns to Valhalla among the favorites, just as he was in 2014. Here are some names that made up the OWGR top 30 a decade ago: Martin Kaymer, Victor Dubuisson, Zach Johnson, Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez (!).

Here’s another way to put Rory’s run into perspective: Consider how much Scottie Scheffler has been earning over the past few years. Now realize that Scheffler (8.3%) is still far behind McIlroy’s career PGA Tour win rate (10.5%). Oh, and again, Rory has been at this for twice as long.

There are a few reasons why McIlroy is discussed in a different context than his peers; a couple was on full display Sunday at Quail Hollow.

The first is when Rory physically proves “you don’t have that equipment,” which he did this weekend while Xander Schauffele stood there, mouth agape, eyes rolling in the back of his head from the beating he received at the hands of a stopwatch.

The second is less obvious visually. Playing at this level throughout McIlroy’s time of success requires (a) extraordinary talent, (b) an uncommon work ethic, and (c) a love for the game that not everyone possesses. Rory had repercussions in all three cups, which is part of the reason why so many fans and analysts simply can’t stop enjoying the show.

“I don’t know what’s more unbelievable: winning a PGA Tour event for the fourth time or getting my 26th,” McIlroy said Sunday. “Whenever I reach some of these milestones or do these things, I always think about, for example, how I, at 20 years old, played this tournament for the first time.

“If I had known back then that this was how it was going to happen, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Yes, whenever things like this happen, I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have the opportunity to do what Yes, I was able to play golf well enough today to take advantage of that opportunity.”

It’s abnormal for a career to seem historic halfway through. Tiger Woods certainly did. I’m sure this was also the case during Jack Nicklaus’ run. For others – even greats like Rory and Phil Mickelson – there is always something to criticize, something that could or should have been different.

At this point in McIlroy’s professional career, it’s impossible to deny that he’s having one of the 15 or 20 best careers in golf history. To say otherwise would be deluding oneself with fiction versus reality.

The numbers are the numbers, and the truth is the truth: Rory is headed for one of two clubs: 30 PGA Tour wins and five major championships or even 40 PGA Tour wins and six major championships.

This is rare air.

McIlroy currently has 26 PGA Tour wins and four majors. Here are the players he is looking for for the 30/5 club (golfers in bold are also at the 40/6 club).

Golfers’ careers can be measured in several ways. Most prominent – ​​and perhaps most important – is the number of major titles a player claims. So while Rory’s victory in Quail Hollow was certainly relevant, it pales in comparison to what he can accomplish in Valhalla this week.

If McIlroy can win three consecutive events with a major championship in Valhalla as the clincher – for the second time in a decade – it will be another unusual feat in a career full of them.

Rory has been an outlier from the start. In 2014 at Valhalla, he joined Tiger and Jack as the only golfers in the modern era to win four majors by age 25. If he wins again this week – or at any time in the next few years – he will join Woods on a different list. Woods spent 11 years between the 2008 US Open and the 2019 Masters, an extraordinarily long time that few have matched (one of them was Ben Crenshaw, who won the Masters in 1984 and later in 1995.

McIlroy’s career is among the most unusual of the last quarter century. Winning so much so early and then following through with such consistency – but without an additional big win – has been both enjoyable and intriguing. Difficult to classify and decipher.

“I’ve done everything there is to do in the game since 2014,” McIlroy said. “The only thing I need to do is get another big title. You know, a win like that at the PGA Championship next week is a good way to prepare for that.”

McIlroy still has a level of play that few golfers on the planet can reach, an intangible that is only bequeathed to certain individuals. Much can be extracted from the earth; Being a star and having a true sense of the moment is innate.

His CV and professional trajectory are almost incomprehensibly good. Every win, even those that don’t come in the majors, is a reminder of how long he’s been great and how difficult it is for anyone to maintain excellence at that rate.

Of course, McIlroy has recently had monstrous moments at the biggest events. Of course, he hasn’t won a major championship in 10 long years.

But McIlroy proved once again on Sunday that there are still many chapters to be written in what was once one of the most storied careers in modern golf.