{"id":397927,"date":"2026-01-07T17:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T17:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397927\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T17:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T17:11:15","slug":"why-rory-mcilroy-may-stay-stuck-on-five-majors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397927\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Rory McIlroy May Stay Stuck on Five Majors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you ready for the 2026 golf season?<\/p>\n

More than three months have passed since the Ryder Cup, four months since the Tour Championship and\u2014gasp!\u2014five months since the British Open, the last major championship of 2025.<\/p>\n

SI Golf is previewing the new year, from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf and more. So far we have predicted the major champions<\/a>, debated whether world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will bag another PGA Tour Player of the Year award and today we ask if Rory McIlroy will add to his major count one year after completing the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n

dark. Sign Up Now. SI Golf Newsletters. Sports Illustrated\u2019s Free Golf Newsletters<\/p>\n

Agree or disagree with us? Tell us on the\u00a0SI Golf X<\/a>\u00a0account.<\/p>\n

Bob Harig: FICTION. While it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if McIlroy won a major in 2026, the feeling here is that he\u2019s still dealing with climbing that big mountain again. Is he as motivated to go after it? Repeating at Augusta is never easy and Aronimink for the PGA is tough to gauge. McIlroy missed the cut at Shinnecock in 2018 although he was at a stage where he struggled with the tournament and has been far better since. He was fourth at Birkdale in 2017 so clearly he\u2019s had some success there. So much of this depends on McIlroy himself.<\/p>\n

Jeff Ritter: FICTION. McIlroy played great at the end of 2025 after drifting through summer following his win at Augusta. He could very well win another major this year and I certainly expect him to contend\u2014but after such a long drought to win major No. 5, I think he may have to wait a bit longer for his next one.<\/p>\n

\"Rory<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy ended his 2025 major season with an emotional T7 in front of adoring Irish fans at Royal Portrush. \/ Mike Frey-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Max Schreiber: FICTION. He has the talent to do so, but it seems his drive has weakened since winning the Masters. That doesn\u2019t mean he isn\u2019t trying to win when he tees it up, but others might just want it more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Schwarb: FICTION. None of us picked McIlroy in our 2026 major predictions<\/a> so at least we\u2019re consistent. I\u2019m not dissing to say he won\u2019t bag a big one, for starters I think that No. 1 Scottie Scheffler claims one or two so that immediately means fewer to go around. And how about this: McIlroy ranked 177th in driving accuracy out of 180 players last year on Tour. Even with how far he hits it, gotta think spraying it won\u2019t help at a place like Shinnecock.<\/p>\n

More Golf from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are you ready for the 2026 golf season? More than three months have passed since the Ryder Cup,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-397927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}