The black-tie formalwear required for a state dinner at the White House was dispensed with. Here, Rory McIlroy was very much at ease at his press conference, dressed in shorts and hoodie without any headwear and the laces on his Nike Airs undone so that the right foot from where he’d self-extracted the nail on his little toe had some room to manoeuvre.
“Do you want to see it?” he asked, nimbly dipping to slip his foot from the sneaker and remove the sock and then the little blister pad to reveal his handiwork. “I ended up ripping the toenail off last night just because it was bothering me so much, so it’s fine.”
McIlroy will size up to 42½ in golf shoes to give a little more room for the journey ahead for the coming days, but the issue has not completely gone away. McIlroy had to stop his Tuesday practice round at the PGA Championship after three holes because of pain in his toe.
The Masters champion heads off in search of a third Wanamaker Trophy at this 108th edition of the US PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, an old Donald Ross classic.
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McIlroy had looked relaxed in his own skin when speaking with the media, and with a freer head in mapping out his own way of preparing for the Major championships which have become the focus point of each and every season for the Northern Irishman.
He knows, everyone knows, he is the only player in Philly who can become the first player to win all four Majors in the one season. An impossible ask of anyone, so far anyway. Not Jack. Not Tiger. No one.
“There’s a reason no one’s been able to do it before in the history of the game,” said McIlroy. “It is possible, but it’s very, very difficult. I think the best thing that you can do is give yourself a chance in each one and then just see where the chips fall at the end of the day on Sunday.
“There is quite a lot of randomness at times to winning golf tournaments. You have to have a lot of things go your way along with playing well yourself. In a hundred years’ time, if one person has done it, I would say I would see that happening.”
But McIlroy knows the deal better than anyone at this point, his career Grand Slam achieved last year and, most recently, back-to-back Masters added to the curriculum vitae of golfing greatness. He now has other goals – overtaking Nick Faldo’s career six Majors among them – in his sights.
“These four weeks a year are the biggest weeks,” he acknowledged, “and then you throw a Ryder Cup in there every other year and it’s five big weeks a year. I just feel like I’m at a point in my life and my career that these are the most important things, and these are the things that people are going to remember.
“Hopefully I still win PGA Tour events going forward and DP World Tour events, but all of my focus and everything that I do is geared towards making sure that I’m ready for these four weeks a year.”
Last week’s reappearance on tour at the Truist at Quail Hollow was McIlroy’s first tournament since retaining the green jacket at the Masters last month. The past few weeks have also included that visit to the White House and downtime with his family. Similar to his preparations in advance of Augusta, his coach Michael Bannon travelled over for a week’s swing work, mostly at the Bear’s Club in Florida, but also taking in a day trip to Philadelphia to access the site for this season’s second Major championship.
First and second impressions of the task ahead?
“It’s, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is [typical of] a lot of these newly renovated [courses]. I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here.
“When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee ... it’s a course where you can be super aggressive off the tee, and then there’s a little more strategy and a little more thought going into the greens,” observed McIlroy.
Yet, compared to a year ago when he arrived for the PGA at Quail Hollow following his first Masters win believing he’d scaled Everest and wondered what was next, there is a confidence and vibe about McIlroy of knowing there is yet more to achieve to add to his golfing legacy.
“I came into this tournament last year a little bit sort of uncertain of what my future was, like I conquered this thing that I wanted to conquer for so long, and I still hadn’t really reset goals or found whatever that motivation was to keep going or go forward and set myself goals for the rest of my career. It probably took me a good few months to get to that point.
“Coming into this tournament feels a lot different than what it did last year. I feel like I’ve got some nice, clear road ahead to try to get some more of these Majors.”
A man on a mission, it would seem.
