Rory McIlroy says he still has unfinished business in golf as he prepares to defend his Masters title a year after completing the career Grand Slam.
McIlroy ended an 11-year wait for a fifth major with a dramatic win at Augusta National, erasing a four-shot deficit on his back nine and then beating Justin Rose in a play-off. That triumph made him just the sixth player to win all four majors and he now has the chance to become only the fourth man to claim consecutive green jackets.
Despite joking after his 2025 victory, “what we all going to talk about next year?” and calling the win “my Everest,” McIlroy says he remains hungry to push on. “I think the story as it relates to me is what do I do from now onwards? What motivates me? What gets me going? What do I still want to achieve in the game? I think that’s the story,” he said.
He admitted that success shifts the goalposts. “There’s still a lot that I want to do. You think every time you achieve something or have success that you’ll be happy, but then the goalposts move, and they just keep nudging a little bit further and further out of reach.” He added: “I felt like the career Grand Slam was my destination, and I got there, and then I realised it wasn’t the destination.”
Looking back on the past 12 months, McIlroy described them as “amazing” and said he’s tried to enjoy every part of life as a champion. That has changed his approach to this year’s tournament. “I think for the past 17 years I just could not wait for the tournament to start, and this year I wouldn’t care if the tournament never started!” he said, smiling. “I feel so much more relaxed. I know that I’m going to be coming back here for a lot of years, going to enjoy the perks that the champions get here. It doesn’t make me any less motivated to go out there and play well and try to win the tournament, but yeah, just more relaxed about it all.”
He welcomed the different narrative surrounding his title defence. “I think the nice thing now is instead of it being ‘come on, Rory, you know you can do this’, it’s [can he go] back to back. There’s a real positive connotation to it instead of ‘geez, Rory, we’ve been waiting a while. When are you going to get this done?’ It’s just very different… it feels that it’s a big weight off my shoulders.”
McIlroy also reflected on his comeback at last year’s Masters, when he equalled the largest first-round deficit to win the tournament by recovering from seven behind after the opening day. “I didn’t overreact on Thursday when I made those two double bogeys,” he said. “I didn’t overreact when I was only one-under through nine on Friday. I think not overreacting and not pressing too hard, I stayed patient – or as patient as I could be – and I feel like that patience was rewarded. I played a 14-hole stretch in 10-under after that, and that was literally the stretch of golf that won me the golf tournament.”
On whether Augusta offers his best shot at adding more majors, McIlroy suggested it might. “I feel like I’ve got another, hopefully, 10 good shots of winning this. Not that I don’t at the other majors, but I just think that everything here is a little more predictable. I just think the more experience you have around this golf course, the better it is.”
Watch the opening major of the year exclusively live on Sky Sports. Live first-round coverage begins on Thursday from 2pm on Sky Sports Golf.