Over the past four days when McIlroy built a six-stroke advantage at halfway without playing at his very best, he showed a freedom that had eluded him for much of his chase to complete a full set of majors.<\/p>\n
“I was glad last year that the whole Grand Slam thing was done because that was what I was chasing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And now going forward it’s just, you know, everything is icing on the cake or a cherry on top, all gravy, whatever you want to call it.<\/p>\n
“But I feel like I can just go and play my game and have a chance to win a lot more majors.”<\/p>\n
Having watched his absorbing battle with Cameron Young, the plucky and unlucky veteran Justin Rose and world number one Scheffler – who all threatened McIlroy’s title defence – it seemed as though he was relishing the contest.<\/p>\n
It was less stressful than previous years, more a sporting contest to be enjoyed. “I definitely felt more comfortable in the battle this year on the back nine than last year,” McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
“It is a want more than a need. I want to win the biggest tournaments in the world. I want to win Ryder Cups. I want to win majors.<\/p>\n
“At this point in my career, that is what drives me forward. I think it would have really stung if I hadn’t gone on to win this tournament after building such a commanding lead over the first two days.<\/p>\n
“It would have stung, but at the same time I would have dusted myself off and I would have come back for the PGA at Aronimink, US Open at Shinnecock or [Open Championship] at Birkdale or whatever.<\/p>\n
“But it’s such an amazing start to the major season and I can’t wait for what lies ahead.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past four days when McIlroy built a six-stroke advantage at halfway without playing at his very…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-601523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}