Rory McIlroy Has One Missing Piece to Make 2025 the 'Best Year of My Career'

Rory McIlroy has had an all-time year. 

The 36-year-old Northern Irishman jumped out of the gate by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Players Championship before, of course, finally winning the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. 

The same success hasn’t come since the year’s first major, though, and McIlroy admitted he has struggled to find motivation after slipping on the green jacket. However, he has pinpointed his next objective. 

“Honestly, since the Open passed, it’s the one thing I’ve really been looking towards and making sure my game is in the best possible shape,” McIlroy said Wednesday ahead of the DP World Tour’s Irish Open. “I think we have a wonderful opportunity to do something—honestly, one of the greatest achievements in the game right now is to win an away Ryder Cup, and I think this European team has a great opportunity to do that.”

Over the past decade, the home team has claimed the Ryder Cup each time. The last time a road team won the biennial matches was in 2012, when the Europeans pulled off the “Miracle at Medinah.” Now, Europe will be tasked with ending that drought at a raucous Bethpage Black in New York.  

“We know it’s going to be very tough,” McIlroy said, “but I honestly think we have 12 guys and the captain and the vices and everyone else involved, we’ve got all the ingredients. We just need to put them in the oven, and hopefully it all works out for us.”

McIlroy has played in every Ryder Cup since 2010; therefore, he has a road victory under his belt. But 2025 was the year he checked every box he wanted to in his individual career. 

And if Europe can go back-to-back, this season will stand above the rest for the five-time major champion. 

“I guess it’s the year that everything came together for me,” McIlroy said. “It was basically the one piece of the puzzle that was left for me to complete. When I look at my career and my whole picture as a golfer, I basically, I’ve done everything I wanted to. I guess everything after that, it’s a bonus, but you have to reassess your goals.

“Again, the one thing for me—obviously, I’d love to win this week. I’d love to win next week at Wentworth. But the one thing for me this year to reassess my goals, an away Ryder Cup, after everything that’s happened this year, would be—I would look back on 2025, and there’s no way that I would—if I did have a better year in the game, I’d love to see it.

“But if we were to win an away Ryder Cup with everything else that I’ve been through this year, 2025 would be the best year of my career.”

This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Has One Missing Piece to Make 2025 the 'Best Year of My Career'.