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Rory McIlroy’s best shots of 2025

McIlroy begins the 2026 season free from the burdens of history, but what will an offseason of reflection yield for the world No. 2?

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Written by Paul Hodowanic

McIlroy begins the 2026 season free from the burdens of history, but what will an offseason of reflection yield for the world No. 2?

Traditions mark the passage of time. We process the never-ending tick of the clock with the familiar. Seasons, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries. They act as a bridge between the past and the future, and contextualize the present.

Such is the case in pro golf, too. The sport is ripe with traditions, none more so than the schedule. The familiar cadence sets the tenor of the year. The West Coast Swing morphs into the Florida Swing, which transitions into the buildup, playing and fall-out of the Masters, each element steeped in its own memories and traditions.

The PGA TOUR is amidst the West Coast Swing right now, and for the past few years, that’s also when Rory McIlroy has made his season debut, bringing along its own set of traditions. Mainly, for the previous 13 years, we all gathered to ponder the same preseason McIlroy storyline that wouldn’t die: Will this be the year he finally wins another major?

The media pored over it, and fans tried to will it into existence. McIlroy did, too. He’d detail a shift in his approach – be it mental, physical, emotional, strategic – that he believed would be the difference in finally ending the drought. When that didn’t yield a major, he iterated on top of it, sometimes reverting back to old habits or creating new ones entirely. It was an unfulfilling process for all involved, one that distracted from the inherent joys of watching McIlroy’s extraordinary talent. Success became binary. Did he win a major this season or not? Anything less than a trophy in hand or a jacket over his shoulders was deemed a failure. Ones and zeros. Black and white. There was no room for grey, let alone a bloom of color.

Thank god that tradition is over. For the first time in more than a decade, the conversation can subside. McIlroy begins the 2026 season free from the burdens of history in an even more profound way than the immediate aftermath of his Masters victory last April.

That leads to an overarching question that could go in any multitude of directions: What’s next?

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Rory McIlroy’s road to the green jacket

McIlroy needs time to figure that out. In the weeks and months that followed his completion of the Grand Slam, the world wanted an answer. McIlroy shooed it away. He was going to soak this in, he said. Why push for 13 years to get back to the mountain top, falling repeatedly on the way up, only to descend moments after the summit?

Proclamations of double-digit majors and a new McIlroy came fast and furious. That the next major, the PGA Championship, was at Quail Hollow, a frequent site of McIlroy domination, didn’t quell the hype. Neither did the Open Championship going to Royal Portrush in McIlroy’s native Northern Ireland. McIlroy struggled to find motivation, despite those tantalizing prospects. The lofty expectations made it harder to begin fresh.

What will an offseason of reflection yield? What still matters to McIlroy?

He’s clear in his desire to find meaning. His victory at the Irish Open last fall delivered on that, for obvious reasons. Same for Team Europe’s victory on away soil at the Ryder Cup. What will McIlroy try to chase now? You know he’s thought of it. He’s esoteric, deeply aware and motivated by history and his place in it. He has grand ambitions. His victory at the Masters and the emotion that poured out were evidence of the toll his expectations and hopes had on him.

Rory McIlroy rolls in massive birdie putt to ignite crowd at Ryder Cup

Rory McIlroy rolls in massive birdie putt to ignite crowd at Ryder Cup

If more records are what he’s after, McIlroy is one win from 30 career TOUR victories, a milestone only Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh reached since the turn of the century. McIlroy is one major from tying Nick Faldo for the most by a European player and cementing his status as the best European in the history of the sport. That would also put McIlroy ahead of Brooks Koepka for most majors of his generation. McIlroy has said he wants to win on iconic venues. He’s never lifted a trophy at Riviera or Muirfield Village. This year’s U.S. Open is at Shinnecock Hills, one of the crown jewels of American architecture. Are those at the top of his list? The one goal he has stated publicly is winning an Olympic gold, though he will need to wait until 2028 for that chance.

“I keep saying to him, no matter what he does now, it doesn’t matter,” McIlroy’s close friend Shane Lowry said last May. “I’m sure he doesn’t think like that. I’m sure he’s very driven to win more.”

There’s a top dog to chase, if McIlroy’s motivated by that. For as much as McIlroy defined pro golf in 2025, he didn’t dominate it. Scottie Scheffler did. There’s a clear separation between McIlroy and Scheffler and the rest of the game. But there’s a sizable gap between Scheffler at No. 1 and McIlroy at No. 2. Is he more likely to get closer to Scheffler or fall back to the pack?

It’s all endlessly more fascinating to noodle on than asking whether McIlroy still has what it takes to win a major.

If you want to get caught up in the minutiae of McIlroy, that’s readily accessible. For the first time in his career, McIlroy switched from his traditional set of blade irons to a cavity-back model. How will that impact his game? Quietly, McIlroy had the approach play season of his TOUR career, statistically. Will that improve? At the same time, he had the best putting year of his career. Can that continue? Meanwhile, he’s changing golf balls and drivers. What will that do for him?

And the best part is the answers to those questions don’t all have to ladder up to the same question. The one he finally put to bed in 2025.

So what’s next for McIlroy? Who knows. Isn’t that refreshing?

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Feb 9, 2026

Rory McIlroy betting profile: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AmBetting ProfileImage for article.Image for article.