Rory McIlroy Talks About New Goals After Completing Career Grand Slam

Rory McIlroy is playing Down Under in the Australian Open for the first time in more than a decade. As he returns to Australia’s premier event, he is also doing so at its greatest venue, Royal Melbourne.

The last time he played the event, 2013, he came away with the championship, edging local favorite Adam Scott en route to the title. This week in a press conference before the 2025 Crown Australian Open, McIlroy reminisced about that 2013 win and what his goals for the future are, now that he has completed the Grand Slam and won an away Ryder Cup.

“I think about that tournament a lot. I think about what it meant,” McIlroy said. “I felt at that point in my career, I was at a bit of a crossroads. I had gone off to a great start, but 2013 I’d really struggled and I started to find some form again. I really do think that that win at the end of the year was a catalyst for what happened in 2014, which I’d say 2014 is up there with 2025 as the best two years of my career.”

This spring, after McIlroy captured the elusive Masters title that had tormented him for over a decade and thus finally completing the Grand Slam, he admitted that he struggled with motivation. At the PGA Championship, played at Quail Hollow, a course where McIlroy has won four times, he struggled to a T-47 finish. The following month in the U.S. Open, he finished outside of the top 10 for the first time since 2018.

He finally righted the ship at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush, played in his home country of Northern Ireland. The T-7 finish there helped propel him to an excellent fall. McIlroy won the Irish Open in a playoff and followed that up by helping lead the European Ryder Cup team to an away victory at Bethpage Black. To cap it off, he won his seventh Race to Dubai title in November.

With him finally winning the green jacket and completing the Grand Slam and winning an away Ryder Cup, McIlroy needed to look for new goals to motivate the five-time major champion. This week at his press conference before the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, he revealed one of his new goals – winning events on the greatest golf courses in the world, the cathedrals of the sport.

“I’ve talked about trying to win at some of the most important venues in golf; this week is one of them,” McIlroy said. “You think about the tournaments and the people that have won at Royal Melbourne and how highly regarded it is within the golf world. I was lucky enough to win at Pebble Beach this year for the first time, and obviously at Augusta. I’d love to win at St. Andrews one day. I’d love to win a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

“There are a few venues in our game that maybe just mean a bit more than some of the others, and that’s something that I would love to do one day. I want to win more majors. I want to be part of more Ryder Cup teams. I’d say my records on either tour, whether it be the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour are probably meaning a little less to me as time goes on, and it’s really just focusing on the majors and being part of that Ryder Cup team. I’m trying to build on the legacy that I’ve been building for the last 15 years.”

With his game still in top form, McIlroy, the world’s number two ranked player, will have multiple chances to win some big events at the venues he has talked about as being his top priority. In 2027, the U.S. Open will be held at Pebble Beach and the Open Championship will be held at St. Andrews the following month.

Mike is a founding member of Break80 Golf and a contributing golf and sports writer for Forbes with PGA Tour and LIV Golf media credentials.