{"id":433549,"date":"2025-03-12T09:31:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T13:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/?p=433549"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:39:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:39:27","slug":"rory-mcilroy-rethinking-his-path-to-major-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/rory-mcilroy-rethinking-his-path-to-major-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy Rethinking His Path to Major Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy is considering making changes to his schedule in order to end his decade-long wait for a major victory. The 35-year-old last won a major at the <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/leaderboard\/_\/tournamentId\/1330\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PGA Championship in 2014<\/a>. However, he opened his 2025 PGA Tour season with a win at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2025\/01\/30\/mcllroy-vs-scheffler-pebble-beach-latest-odds\/\" target=\"_self\">AT&amp;T Pebble Beach Pro-Am<\/a> before finishing tied for 17th at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2025\/02\/12\/the-genesis-invitational-tournament-details-predictions\/\" target=\"_self\">Genesis Invitational<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This month, Mcllroy will be among the favorites at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2025\/03\/05\/2025-arnold-palmer-invitational-odds-bets-analysis\/\" target=\"_self\">Arnold Palmer invitational<\/a>, where he aims to win the title for the second time after clinching his first in 2018. A win would see him become the first player since Tiger Woods and just the sixth male golfer in history to complete the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n<p>However, the County Down born player is still uncertain about how to plan his pre-major schedule as he prepares for the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida.<\/p>\n<h2>McIlroy Undecided On Schedule Ahead Of The Masters<\/h2>\n<p>The four-time major winner has admitted that he might need to rethink his path to major glory even while he remains undecided on his schedule as he sets his sights on completing the career grand slam at The Masters next month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I\u2019m still making a bit of a decision,<\/em>\u201d McIlroy said ahead of the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational \u201c<em>I\u2019m going to play these next two weeks (API and The Players), then I&#8217;ll see how these next two weeks go, then I\u2019ll sort of reassess<\/em>,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI <em>don\u2019t like the idea of having three weeks off going before the Masters, so I may add one event, but I\u2019m still unsure which event that may be. But it really just depends on how these two weeks go and how I\u2019m feeling about my game. I imagine adding an event leading into the Masters; it just depends on whether it\u2019s Houston or San Antonio<\/em>\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n<h2>Learning from Past Masters Preparations<\/h2>\n<p>In 2024, McIlroy took two weeks off after playing at the API and The Players before competing in the <a  href=\"https:\/\/valerotexasopen.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Valero Texas Open<\/a> one week before The Masters. He finished third in San Antonio before going on to finish tied for 22nd at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2025\/02\/06\/augusta-nationals-cabins-the-most-exclusive-sleepover-in-golf\/\" target=\"_self\">Augusta National<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 35-year-old has made 16 career starts at The Masters and knows that he&#8217;ll have to be at his best to stand any chance of ending his major drought that has lasted for just over a decade. This includes rethinking his strategy to help him be in the best possible shape.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>No, it helps. I think it does help<\/em>,\u201d McIlroy said of scouting trips to Augusta. \u201c<em>Because you can spend as much time as you want around there. On those days that you go up outside of the tournament, you\u2019re not under any pressure from a time constraint, having to get to the media or having any other obligations<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy is considering making changes to his schedule in order to end his decade-long wait for a major victory. The 35-year-old last won a major at the PGA Championship in 2014. However, he opened his 2025 PGA Tour season with a win at the AT&amp;T Pebble Beach Pro-Am before finishing tied for 17th at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4860,"featured_media":433554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[276,228,212,129,53,34,154,22,282,23],"class_list":["post-433549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-pga","tag-arnold-palmer-invitational","tag-att-pebble-beach-pro-am","tag-genesis-invitational","tag-greg-norman","tag-pga-championship","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-the-masters","tag-the-players-championship","tag-tiger-woods"],"modified_by":"yobodev","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}