Bandying about names for golf’s player of the year in 2023, there was no shortage of qualified candidates. Spain’s Jon Rahm dominated the early months through his Masters triumph. Norway’s Viktor Hovland caught fire in the home stretch to secure the FedEx Cup title. America’s Scottie Scheffler defied a balky putter to retain world No. 1 status. LIV’s Brooks Koepka deftly bridged golf’s uncivil divide and claimed a fifth major crown.
Rory McIlroy would be the first to say his season on the course didn’t quite stack up to any of the above. “I feel like I’ve had a good year, I don’t feel like I’ve had a great year,” McIlroy said a few weeks ago. “Probably give it a 7 out of 10.”
Fair enough assessment for a two-time winner and leading points earner at the Ryder Cup. Yet no player in the world generated more consistent buzz than the Northern Irishman in 2023. Every move McIlroy made moved the needle. Nature abhors a vacuum, and McIlroy has more than anyone else filled the void left by a largely idle Tiger Woods.
McIlroy was in the constant spotlight from his season-opening victory in the Dubai Desert Classic in January to his season-finishing defense of his Race to Dubai crown in November. Despite only one individual tournament win in between (at the dual-sanctioned Genesis Scottish Open), McIlroy was never out of the headlines on a nearly weekly basis. His ubiquitous exposure is a big reason why he pipped Woods for the top ranking and $15 million bonus in the Player Impact Program.
Think about the headlines that charted the course of his season. The driver benching at Riviera that forced a search for a new magic wand. The massive letdown at Augusta that forced an unscheduled vacation and $3 million fine for skipping a mandatory designated event. His shell-shocked response to the stunning tour-PIF alliance. His latest crushing near-miss at the U.S. Open. His second-half resurgence. His back spasms that derailed his Tour Championship chances. His public fury at caddie Joe LaCava during the Ryder Cup. His redemptive triumph as Europe’s leading points earner. His abrupt resignation from the PGA Tour’s Policy Board, saying it’s “not what I signed for.”
He may not have been golf’s player of the year, but he was certainly golf’s protagonist of the year.
Even his failures burned intensely. When McIlroy had to abandon his most trusted tool while in contention at Riviera in February for fear it might not pass a compliance test, it created a brief crisis in confidence that led to an ugly missed cut at the Players when he missed 15 of 28 fairways. But when he got to the Masters three weeks later and tore up the back nine in Wednesday’s practice round, McIlroy was convinced he was on the brink of completing his career slam.
“It’s sort of just like I’ve got all the ingredients to make the pie. It’s just putting all those ingredients in and setting the oven to the right temperature and letting it all sort of come to fruition,” he said. “I know that I’ve got everything there.”
“I was never so sure that I was going to have a great week at Augusta. Never. And then that happened. …” – Rory McIlroy
When he left Augusta on Friday distraught after a 77 sent him home with his pie half-baked, McIlroy fell into a funk that required a mid-season three-week sabbatical to get his head straight.
“I was never so sure that I was going to have a great week at Augusta. Never,” he later said. “And then that happened. It was a great lesson. It was a great lesson for me to not put too much into these feelings or vibes.”
It’s hard to quantify the emotional strain that McIlroy has been under for the last several years as he worked to end a major-championship drought that has extended to nine years while also being the most vocal champion of the PGA Tour while trying to steer it to safety in the game’s civil war. His thoughtful responses to tough issues make him admirably stand apart from his peers but also make him the target of critics including a LIV source who called him a “little bitch” and Phil Mickelson derisively referring to “all his bs.”
While at times the fight seemed to bring out the best in McIlroy’s game, other times the burden showed the toll.
“It wasn’t the golf; it was everything that we’ve all had to deal with in the golf world over the last 12 months and being right in the middle of it and being right in that decision-making process – that’s what gassed me,” he said.
Consequently, the McIlroy who returned after his Masters disappointment was different. He no longer wanted to be the PGA Tour’s mouthpiece in its battle against LIV Golf, pointedly kicking away efforts to drag him back into the LIV conversation with one-word responses. He needed to be a little more selfish and focus more on his golf.
Then came June 6, as McIlroy was preparing for his RBC Canadian Open title defense, when the golf world was rocked by the stunning scene of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sitting next to the chief of Saudi Arabia’s LIV-funding Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, on CNBC announcing what was mistakenly classified as a proposed “merger” between the rival leagues.
Players were blind-sided, but none with more skin invested than McIlroy. More than any player – much more than Woods because he’s out there much more than Woods – McIlroy shouldered the burden of leading the loyal alliance of tour players against the incursion of LIV Golf. At unknown cost to his own performance, McIlroy served as the good soldier.
Shocked by the announcement, he conceded that he couldn’t help but feel like “a sacrificial lamb and feeling like I’ve put myself out there and this is what happens.” Even so, he still has dutifully supported his commissioner and the framework agreement.
McIlroy’s shift into a more self-centered mindset seemed to work as he battled through illness to finish well at the PGA Championship, finding a spark that re-lit his competitive pilot for the second half that concluded 10 consecutive top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour.
McIlroy rebuffed all interviews before the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club and was playing pristine golf that seemed certain to end his major drought. But eerily like the Open at St. Andrews in 2022, his putting fizzled into a stream of pars on Sunday and left him one shot short of Wyndham Clark.
“If I looked back on one thing, I’ll rue that miss at L.A.,” McIlroy recently said. “I had a great opportunity there to pick up another major, and I didn’t.”
“When I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet.” – Rory McIlroy
His ninth consecutive season without adding to his four major wins, however, was tempered by Europe’s galvanizing success in Rome against the Americans. The McIlroy who’d left Whistling Straits shattered and sobbing in 2021 was replaced by a leader determined and even enraged at Marco Simone, where his volatile encounter with Patrick Cantlay’s caddie on the 18th green of a Saturday four-balls match that proved to be his only loss in tallying four points in Europe’s decisive victory.
“I had my best-ever Ryder Cup, which feels like a win to me, especially coming off the back of Whistling Straits,” he said.
While the premature clinching of his fifth Race to Dubai victory was an anti-climactic finish to a turbulent season, McIlroy seems poised to make more noise in 2024 when he’ll turn 35. Relieved of the burden of dealing with the tasks of leadership, he can concentrate on his golf as the PGA Tour embarks on a new foundation that McIlroy helped fashion.
His lingering words as he swallowed his disappointment in Los Angeles in June resonate now as both a promise and warning to his peers as he braces for the challenge of being golf’s leading man on the course as well as in the headlines.
“When I do finally win this next major, it’s going to be really, really sweet,” McIlroy said. “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”