Rory McIlroy, who will attempt to defend his title at the Players Championship next week, sat down with Fried Egg Golf's Kevin Van Valkenburg for a conversation about what motivates him now that the career Grand Slam has been crossed off his goals, what he wants his legacy to be, what he admires about Scottie Scheffler, and what life after golf holds.
Check out the full conversation on our YouTube channel and some of our favorite answers below:
What motivates you at age 36?
I think I have needed to ask myself that question, especially after what happened last year and the Grand Slam, because that was really what motivated me for the last decade. And not just that, obviously there's other things you want to achieve in the game, but I guess the guiding light was that.
It's probably taken me a while to figure out where I wanted to go from here and what my priorities were. But I think as time goes on, I want to leave a legacy in the game. And I don't know if this is ego or if this is just — I think sometimes I give myself goals or I give myself these motivations and I think to myself, well, are these my goals or are these goals that people have made for me?
I've thought long and hard about it, and I actually, I had a chance to have dinner with Roger Federer a few weeks ago, and he framed the question a little differently to me. And it just made me think about it a little bit differently. And I was asking him when he got to a point in his career when he achieved everything he really wanted to, what was the motivation to keep going? And his answer was great and it had to do with Pete Sampras. When he got to 15, which was past Pete's 14, he's like, ‘Well, 20 didn't seem that far away.’ It's the same thing for me. I've got the five majors, you know, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that I could win every major twice, which would be a really cool thing to win the Grand Slam twice.
I've always been very hesitant to put a number on it because if you don't get to that number, does that mean you're a failure? Does that mean that you haven't done what you set out to achieve? But then at the same time, if you put a number out there — I'm not saying that I'm gonna put a number on it, but internally — if I have something I want to do and I don't quite get there, but I at least finish a little further ahead than where I do right now, then it was worth trying to get there. So I think that's where I'm at. Are there a certain number of majors I'd like to win? Yes. Am I going to put that number out into the world? Probably not, because I don't need my goal to become other people's goal, a little bit like what the Masters really became for me over these last 10 years.
I want to leave a legacy in the game and I've talked about wanting to be the best European that's ever played the game. People have different barometers about what that is, but it's really like Faldo and Seve. I feel like in the game I've been able to pass a lot of the things that they did, but then there's probably other things that I need to do to cement my place in that spot.
What do you feel like you've learned about yourself in the last few years?
That I'm more like my dad than I thought I was. I'm an eternal optimist. I try to see the good in everything. I try to find silver linings anywhere that I look, and that's definitely an attribute I get from my dad. And I think to have the longevity that I've had in this game, I think you have to be that way. Because people frame it as resilience, but I don't really think it is. It is resilience in terms of bouncing back from setbacks and coming again and performing, but honestly it's about having hope and seeing the good in things. That's where my resilience comes from. It's not from this grit and determination and this macho alpha side of myself. It's just more that I believe good things are going to happen. And I don't know if that's a good sort of naivety to live life with or not, but all I can say is I'm more like my dad than I thought I was.
What is some advice that someone has given you that you've tried to adopt in your life in recent years?
I would say, and this is sort of cliché, but go with your instinct. Sometimes I do that a little too much or too much on gut feel, like on the golf course, for example. I would say my general disposition is probably a little more impulsive, so I sometimes have to rein myself back in. I feel like I've never made a terrible decision when it's been on gut instinct. I've made bad decisions when I've overthought things.
What kind of Ryder Cup captain do you want to be when that call comes someday for you?
I've been very fortunate to play under a lot of different captains, a lot of great captains. I'd like to think that I would take a little bit from each of their captaincies. Watching (Luke Donald) turn into the leader that he has become over the last four years has been absolutely incredible. And I've been very close with him on that journey. To see what a leader Paul McGinley was in Gleneagles in 2014, Thomas Bjorn in 2008, they've all had their attributes, and I'd like to think I could take a little leaf out of every one of their books and try to put it into my captaincy. In the Ryder Cup, I've always tried to lead by example from a player perspective. Just because I may be the most senior on the team or the one with the most accolades, that doesn't mean that I don't show up first for team meetings. I've always said this, but I want Rasmus Hojgaard or Bob MacIntyre to look at me and think that they're on the same level for the week. To try to create a culture where there's no hierarchy within the team is something that would be really important to me.
Golfers are individual people and individual sports people, so let them be who they need to be to get the best out of themselves. I don't want to put so much structure in that people don't feel like they can be themselves or get the best out of themselves. So definitely try to be a little more – like one of the things McGinley was so good at is he had to treat me very differently than he had to treat Victor Dubuisson, for example. But to see him do that and some of the things he did for Victor to make him feel comfortable in that environment, that's something that I'd want to do, as well.
Is the Ryder Cup in a good place after what happened in New York?
It'll be in a ... yeah, it is. I think from a competition standpoint, it's amazing. It's the biggest rivalry we have in our game.
I think the spirit in which the game is played could change, and that's something that we're going to hopefully address in Ireland next time around. Because the Ryder Cup was created to be played in a certain spirit, and I don't think it was played in the right spirit in New York. Between the players, it probably was, but obviously what happened with the fans went over the line in some places. Just trying to pull that side of it, that part of it back a little bit, and just have people understand that our game is a little different than other sports, and I think that's what makes it so great, and that's a good thing. Golf doesn't need to be like these other sports. It's got enough great attributes to stand on its own.
You’ve talked about the cathedrals of the game that had some importance and meaning to you, and you checked off a few of them with Pebble Beach and Augusta National. What's left?
