Rory McIlroy Isn't Letting His Major Championship Drought Cloud His Perspective Heading Into The U.S. Open
When Rory McIlroy steps to the first tee Thursday for what will be his 16th start in a U.S. Open, it will mark 3,595 days since he last won a major championship. He's played in 36 major championships since winning his last - the 2014 PGA Championship - and for a decade has had to hear the storyline of attempting to win the fifth major of his career only to come up short.
Dealing with that expectation of winning another major championship and having 10 Top 5 finishes in majors since that 2014 victory has assuredly resulted in serious levels of disappointment, frustration, and probably even spells of hatred toward the game of golf itself.
Winning four majors in a three-year stretch and then playing the next 10 years without winning one would weigh on anyone.
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Just like the storyline of winning another major has chased McIlroy for the last 10 years, the question of whether his career has been a success or a failure has been a part of the discussion surrounding the 35-year-old as well.
Despite the decade-long major drought and the overwhelming outside noise, McIlroy is pleased with what he's been able to accomplish up to this point of his career.
"Tiger wanted to surpass Jack. It looks like he mightn't get there, but are we going to call Tiger's career a failure? Absolutely not. It's arguably the best. He's played the best golf anyone's ever seen," McIlroy said Tuesday.
"There's always going to be that tinge of what could have been. I don't want to do that to myself. If someone would have told me at 20 years old I'd be sitting here at 35 and this is the career I've had, I would not have believed them and I would have been ecstatic.
"I still have a good a little bit of time here, hopefully for the next 10 years. I still like to think I've got a good run ahead of me. Whatever those numbers are, whatever the totals add up to, I'll accept that and feel like I've done pretty well for a little boy from Northern Ireland that dreamed of playing golf for a living one day."
McIlroy has earned nearly $88 million on the PGA Tour alone and millions more off of the golf course which certainly helps him to have a positive outlook on his career. His call back to just being a kid from Northern Ireland who has been able to live beyond his dreams, however, presents this perspective that he is genuinely proud of his career accomplishments, and why wouldn't he be?
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Perhaps drawing back to that mindset of just being a kid from a small town in the middle of nowhere could bring him success this week at Pinehurst. He did state that he's "more confident than ever" that his fifth major championship victory is coming soon.
McIlory has improved his finish in each of the last five U.S. Opens, and a year ago he finished solo second to Wyndham Clark.