Padraig Harrington believes Rory McIlroy can catch Tiger Woods’ haul of 15 major championships if the Northern Irishman continues playing for another 10 years. McIlroy ended an 11-year wait for a major triumph and banished his Masters demons by winning at Augusta National last weekend.
McIlroy claimed the fifth major of his career and became only the sixth golfer in history to complete the Career Slam of all four of golf’s biggest prizes. Woods was the last player to claim a Career Slam, doing so 25 years ago, and there is another milestone set by the American that McIlroy will have in his sights. After relinquishing an enormous amount of pressure by finally winning the Masters, McIlroy has been backed to match the 15 majors Woods won from 1997 to 2019.
If McIlroy gets into double figures, Harrington believes there will even be talk of the 35-year-old reaching Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors. The Irishman believes his former rival has all the ingredients to continue winning for another decade.
Speaking on the Golf Channel, Harrington said: “The Masters was distinctly different to every other tournament for Rory. Now he’s over that. He asked in his press conference, ‘What are we going to talk about next year?’.
“Well, we’re going to talk about whether he can complete the yearly Grand Slam, we’re going to talk about whether he can beat Nick Faldo’s six majors, we’re going to talk about whether he can get to 10 majors.
“And guess what? We’re going to talk about whether he can get to 15 majors and then we’re going to talk about whether he can get to 18 majors.
“The beauty for Rory is that his game is future-proofed. He’s not a guy who gets injured and he’s extremely powerful, so it doesn’t matter if all these kids coming out of college hit it for miles. That doesn’t matter to Rory. Nobody is going to have an advantage over him.
“The only thing Rory has to mind about for the next 10 years of playing golf is that he doesn’t get burned out and that mentally he still wants it. Another thing for Rory is that he puts a lot into the gym as a way of practising his golf. His gym time is a way of him improving. He doesn’t have to hit as many balls and he stays nice and healthy because of it. I envisage Rory going on for a good few years.”
McIlroy won the Masters after beating Justin Rose in a tense play-off, having previously gone into Sunday’s final round two strokes ahead of Bryson DeChambeau. His birdie in the play-off completed an emotional success.
