McEwan: Rory McIlroy and the unknowable ‘next’

There is a fascinating book called ‘No More Worlds To Conquer’. Released in 2019, its author Chris Wright channeled a core theme of ‘On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander’ by Greek philosopher Plutarch.

The latter explores the reaction of Alexander the Great, the formidable and unbeaten military commander, who is said to have broken down in tears when he realised he had fulfilled the last of his grandiose ambitions. He died at the age of 32 and is reported to have requested that his hands be displayed outside his coffin, a visceral reminder to all who mourned him that, although he had achieved great things in life, he could carry none of it with him in death.

Wright’s own book studied 16 different people, each of whom had achieved extraordinary things. Or more accurately, it explored what they did next. Whereas Alexander the Great wept and consoled himself with wine, what did they do?

From Nadia Comaneci, who, at the age of 14, became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score at the Olympic Games (a feat she repeated six more times at the same Games), to Chuck Yeager and Don Walsh, the first men to break the sound barrier and travel to the bottom of the deepest ocean respectively, Wright went in search of their perceived post-scripts, finding much more than he could have anticipated.

This only merits mention because Rory McIlroy finds himself in somewhat of a similar situation. The Irishman finally scaled his own Everest in April when he won The Masters, fulfilling a lifelong ambition of receiving the green jacket and becoming only the sixth male golfer – the first from Europe – to complete the career grand slam.

In the time it took for the dust to settle on his Augusta National heroics, the narrative surrounding McIlroy shifted from ‘will he ever accomplish this’ to ‘what will he do now’. At 36 years of age, and health permitting, he has a lot of competitive golf left to play and yet, whatever else he does go on to accomplish, the defining chapters of his career have already been written. He can win more, sure. But will any win ever – ever – compare to events of two months ago? And if can’t or won’t, what is all that remains of his career but one long lap of honour?

These are the kind of questions McIlroy has, by his own admission, been wrestling with in recent weeks. Ahead of the RBC Canadian Open, his third start since the Masters, he was asked what he is chasing now that he’s caught up with the thing he’s always pursued.

“I don’t know if I’m chasing anything,” he revealed. “Going and grinding on the range for three or four hours every day is maybe a little tougher than it used to be.

“You have this event in your life that you’ve worked towards and it happens, and sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.”

He added that he has treated the last two weeks since an indifferent, agitated display at the PGA Championship as an opportunity to “reset” and “just to sort of figure out where I’m at in my own head, what I want to do, where I want to play.”

You can’t blame him for not having the answers. His entire life has been building towards one thing. ‘Next’ was scarcely a consideration. But now, ‘next’ is ‘now’. And he’s stuck in the middle of it, trying to make sense of it, whilst an impatient world demands answers?

Are you chasing Tiger? Are you chasing records? Are you chasing just joy in your everyday life? How would you describe what you’re chasing these days?

That was just one Canadian inquisition.

Whatever his ‘next’ proves to be, how and whether he gets there promises to be fascinating. Rory is extraordinarily ‘book smart’ but does he have the emotional intelligence or the animalistic hunger to find a new motivation now that he’s done the thing he’s always wanted to do?

The received wisdom was that finally winning The Masters would open the floodgates for him to go on a multi-major-winning run, that an unburdened Rory McIlroy was a dangerous Rory McIlroy. But what kind of a golfer is an unburdened Rory McIlroy really? Better? Worse? More prolific? Less prolific? Nobody knows. Not even Rory himself. It’s quite possible that he even needs that burden, that pressure, that chase to enable him to unlock his very best stuff. Only time will tell.

For the first time in at least a generation, there’s also no recent frame of reference. Unlike McIlroy, Tiger Woods – the bar, the benchmark, the example for every other golf achievement in the 21st century – never fulfilled his own lifetime ambition. Eclipsing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major victories was Woods’ competitive ‘why’. Except he never got there. His pursuit has been in vain and so there’s no blueprint for McIlroy to refer to. He is, in a quite literal sense, a man without peer.

And so arguably the best European golfer of all time, Rory finds himself at an extraordinary intersection. Can he identify an ambition to sufficiently motivate and sustain him now that he’s delivered his magnum opus?

It’s a wonderful predicament, but a predicament, nonetheless.

Michael McEwan is bunkered's Head of Content and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Head of Content