What the F*ck Happened to Rory Mcilroy?

Rory Mcilroy, Once one of the most promising players in the golf world has had an interesting past decade to say the very least.

From 2010 to 2024, let’s take a look at the career and life of Rory Mcilroy to figure out what the future may be like for the Northern Irishman.

there is talk today that Rory could be the next great one something amazing happened yesterday 22-year-old golfer Rory mroy became the youngest US Open Champion almost 90 years you to finally be able to call myself a major Champion is uh is a dream come true comparisons between him and all the greats of golf have followed Rory around forever but they have also set lofty expectations on his shoulders that have overshadowed much of his career however at the start of his career you couldn’t that at all just yet Rory mroy came onto the Golf Scene like almost no other in golf history the northern Irishman made his debut in a major at just 18 years old in the 2007 Open Championship a year younger than Tiger Woods was when he made his debut at the 1995 masters from there he didn’t immediately jump to the PGA Tour spending 2 years or so primarily competing on the European tour and strengthening his golf and probably his confidence indirectly this also helped strengthen his reputation as well over time the character of Rory mroy grew to unbelievable Heights and he was praised as kind of Europe’s Golden Boy all of this halalu even caught the attention of Tiger Woods himself when he invited Roars to his 2007 Target World Challenge an invitation that mooy would actually turn down to compete in the European open showing signs of a loyalty trait that we’ve come to know a lot about today after not competing in a single PGA Tour event in 2008 Rory’s six top 10 placements in Europe pushed the 19-year-old to 79th in the world already with that ranking came a lot more eyes on him and his beautiful swing Rory at the time was a very long hitter who absolutely came on tour and played like a long hitter instead of opting for irons off par fours to land where the rest of the pack were to protect them from wherever their long drives could land Rory chose to play with his length to use that advantage grab his driver and put himself in the best position to score that is part of what brought him so much success in Europe brought him to the 79th ranking in the world and it didn’t take long for that to take shape in America as well in 2009 Rory competed in 11 more events on the PGA tour making 10 cuts and finishing in the top 25 seven times with no others being any more memorable than his third place finish in the PGA Championship that year behind Tiger Woods and Y yang roor was making a very strong impression for himself and leveling up the golf world for excitement for the actual game which was unique for that year considering everything that would come out around Thanksgiving about Woods’s Affair and all of the nonsense that went around that well a lot of people were focusing on mroy as well it may have been a tumultuous time for Tiger but for Rory man it was his time to shine his game was electric and his incredibly kind and likable personality won over so many fans who being from America hadn’t heard a ton about this young Irishman before then in May of 2010 Rory would finally grab his first tour Victory with a win at Quail Hollow that saw him drop a 62 to Vault past Phil Mickelson and win by four strokes keep in mind that’s also the same Phil Mickelson that had won the Masters a month earlier and for the rest of that year Rory had some really good results tied for third in the Open Championship tied for third in the PGA tied for 10th at Memorial there were times where this kid looked looked incredibly unbeatable but at times is the operative point of that statement because he was very streaky on top of all that success mooy was also cut from the US Open The Masters the players and another tournament as well however I think we all know what was going on his putting was just not there often enough the rest of his game now could be great but the short game was all over the place at times if we look at his Strokes gain breakdown for that year basically the best representation we can find right now for how good he is compared to the rest of the field well it tells an interesting story 21-year-old mroy was sixth in Strokes gained off the T but his ranking quickly got worse the closer you got to the green he ranked 55th in Strokes gained approach to the green that’ll be his irons and his wedge shots mostly but 109th on tour in Strokes gained around the green and 145th in Strokes gained putting he was close to being great but his entire game was not good enough consistently enough and that’s perfectly explains the wild difference in these results on some weeks he had the ability to rock the tours world with his game shutting down even the best at the time like at Quail Hollow with Phil Mickelson but other times he didn’t even look like he belonged with the rest of the pros at least when he stepped off the tea box and to put that into perspective the guy was 2021 so of course he didn’t look like everyone else on tour all the time but because he was always compared with Tiger Woods moving to that point well it kind of created this contrast of the two of of what Rory was doing and what tiger had done that will come much more into play later on however in 2011 we would see the very best of what royal mroy was capable of that year While most American golfers his age were graduating college and preparing for their first run at the tour while Rory was playing unbelievable golf at the 2011 master Rory Moy was so very close to being perfect on Thursday he shot a 65 to tie him for the lead then took the lead Friday with a very clean 69 that put him two strokes ahead of everybody else going into the weekend and Saturday was exactly the same story a nice and easy 70 bolstered his lead to four strokes and going into Sunday well that’s a lead that’s hard to lose especially when you’re playing insanely good golf like Rory was that week now it’s not unprecedented especially at Augusta National but hey after only three bogeys in total for that trip to Augusta Well it’s hard to see where he would even drop Strokes at all but on Sunday something happened to that babyfaced European that would change his career forever after walking into that day predictably nervous Rory did what he was best known for and boomed a drive down the first hole where he would surprisingly miss a putt from 5T maybe a sign of what was to come for his fourth bogey of the week however he did steady the ship a little bit and worked with his score managing a One-Shot lead going into the back where everything fell apart in an insane way he triple bogied 10 bogied 11 and double bogied 12 just like that Rory had gone from four strokes ahead to five Strokes back in just 12 holes of golf Rory capitulated in the face of his 54 hole major lead something that could either be taken as a learning experience for some or a scarring one for others and 2 months later Rory would show us which of it it would be for him at that Year’s US Open Rory would put on a showing that the golf world had seen just a few times before on Thursday he walked out at Congressional Country Club in Maryland and Rory boomed a 6 under 65 in the face of his competitors showing everyone he was back and ready to play he had been really good in the past three Majors but hadn’t been able to put it together completely but now the 22-year-old would absolutely change that this week a second round 66 was the headline of Friday he was perfect but the wild part was that he actually double bogied 18 even with that scar on the score sheet he sat six Strokes ahead of PGA champion and so-called tiger killer y Yang but the South Korean wouldn’t be able to chase him down that week Saturday another day of elite scoring weather helped Rory drop a 68 to bolster his lead to eight Strokes at 14 under such a low score in fact that if he just parred out on Sunday he would beat the lowest score in a US Open in history by two strokes but hey that would be way too easy for him with a score of 69 on Sunday Rory won the $1.4 million purse by eight Strokes ahead of his surging Jason Day on Sunday and cemented his name as a major winner and as someone who could prove everyone wrong that he was great and he was here who could turn around in the face of adversity and could find his game when it mattered the most Rory was solid for the rest of the year and going into 2012 Rory still won a lot including a PGA Championship Tiger Woods was the youngest player ever to win two majors but that honor now belongs to Rory mroy who beat tiger by four months in that age bracket it was a dominating performance on Sunday one that will be talked about for many years to come however that very random golf was still very much so apparent he won four tour events that year but was also cut three times including at the US Open something was still arai and it frustrated Rory to Great length comparing his Strokes gain stats for 2012 and 2010 we see a stark contrast in his short game but his putting stats were still not very impressive ranking just 88th on tour then in January 23rd melroy signed a 10-year $250 million deal with Nike making him one of the highest paid athletes in the world and putting a lot of pressure on his shoulders that he wasn’t necessarily ready for he was still an elite golfer absolutely one of the best in the world but still inconsistent and at 22 well that all can’t be very easy to handle even for a now two-time major Champion the rest of that year was not very good for him as he did not win a single event and was yet again cut from a major missing out on the weekend at the Open Championship he showed all his frustration very publicly with some of his reactions but Rory would again prove his ability to recover to go back to being Elite just as he had a few years before at the open going into 2014 finally the northern Irishman found some consistency not missing a single cut that year and for the first time placing within top 50 on the T tour in Strokes gains putting oh yeah and he won three tournaments in the span of one month two of which were Majors that year Rory mroy won the Open Championship and the PGA Championship that would start a streak of 54 weeks at top the World Golf Ranking Rory had finally put it together when it really mattered the most and was setting himself up for a ridiculous career with four majors by the age of 25 only something Tiger Woods had done before him Rory was ready for greatness and honestly if his career ended there it still would have placed him up there with all of those guys we always hear so much about today the following year though in terms of pure golf quality was a very similar story he played a few weeks of incredible golf won again at Quail Hollow where he shot the course record 61 and won that week by seven strokes and was deservedly up there was one of the best golfers in the game however his best fin in a major in 2014 was a fourth place spot at the Masters that he earned with the help of two very low weekend scores but they weren’t good enough to take home the trophy now grouping all of these years together is kind of crazy considering Rory maoy won a hell of a lot of PGA Tor events in the meantime but I’m doing so because he has yet to win a single major again and I think a lot of it has to do with his style of play I don’t think it’s a lack of confidence or by any means a lack of of an ability just that he has the same style plays in a similar way to the same kid that broke the golf world in 2014 he hits bombs is consistently one of the top touring Pros off the tea but is incredibly inconsistent with the flat stick and around the green even when we see him bounce back and say he’s feeling better than ever with it at some points in the few weeks following he almost always loses it again it’s actually very similar to how Scotty sheffler played until this year up until 2024 Scotty was still one of the best golfers in the world getting to the green constantly leading in all the same stats Rory did and even being better around the green but he could just never seem to get a putt to fall that would change once in a while and we’d see him win a tournament with relative ease but it was far from consistent however this year he’s found that form won some insane tournaments pretty simply and is by far in way the best golfer in the world because he is great everywhere those putts are falling it’s in finding that consistency that we see something Rory hasn’t been able to do and since 2014 do it all when it’s mattered the most all those comparisons to Tiger were exciting because he was great immediately sometimes because he looked like tiger sometimes but not consistently enough like we’re seeing from Scotty sheffler right now but that doesn’t mean he isn’t good or hasn’t been good in fact he has the most PGA Tour wins of any active player who who isn’t named Phil or tiger and has been up there in the top five 10 golfers in the world pretty much his entire career but just hasn’t found that form again in all majors he’s been really close a lot and I’m sure it’s just as painful for him as it is for me and probably for you as well it’s just a fact that a lot of people stick behind him and it’s very easy to for all the Diehard PGA Tour guys well Rory’s been so far a beacon of loyalty for the tour just as he was years ago when he turned down tigers’s offered to play to play for the European tour instead however there is a lot that Rory has been capable of doing that most guys today just can’t but the biggest of those things is his longevity we’ve seen guys like Justin Thomas Jordan spe and Jason day all come out really hot win great events but then falter to the Shadows a little bit at least relative to what Rory has been able to do mroy is consistently great but not consistently great enough we almost always see his name up there but it’s a matter of that flat stick to this day he’s going to hit his driver further than everyone but two or three other guys every week which is wildly impressive considering how many people have been focusing on speed in recent years to maintain that skill and that rank in doing that while still playing top tier golf so consistently that deserves an award in and of itself but Majors haven’t been awarded to him since because his putter isn’t there enough in those events his short game on top of that isn’t great right now either despite winning twice on tour already in 2024 and being ranked third in the world and second in the world for some of it Rory is 74th on tour in Strokes gained around the green while he’s actually a little bit better with the flat stick ranking 40th in Strokes gained putting that’s all to say I don’t think anything has really happened to Rory he’s still a great player who can on his day be better than pretty much everyone else and we see that sometimes times but inconsistencies with that Elite level have kept him out of the conversation of best golfers of all time I think Rory’s Peak as an athlete in tournaments when everything is working for him is better than pretty much every other golfer we’ve ever seen he can be incredible but it’s just finding that form again but he’s just got to find that form at the right time a lot of other golfers put everything together only in those majors and now with live golf a lot of golfers are only competing against Rory in those tournaments so it’s it’s going to be harder for him but he still has that quality he still has that ability and come on roor we’re rooting for you but even if you don’t win another well man you’ve been wonderful to watch over the years thank you for watching this story if you enjoyed check out this one about the greatest year in PGA tour history or this one about whatever YouTube thinks you’ll be interested in I’ll see you in the next one peace