The 2021 Major season: Winners and Losers

Rory McIlroy

McIlroy’s reputation took another hit in 2021. He is now winless in Majors for 27 starts across seven seasons, which is a longer period than he needed to lock up the four Major trophies he does have.

Worse, McIlroy, in his 30s, has begun to slide down, rather than up, the all-time career list. He missed the cut at Augusta, played indifferently at both the PGA and British Open, and was really only a factor at the U.S. Open, where he came home in a tie for seventh.

As a result, although McIlroy began the 2021 calendar with a career score of -11.56, good for 55th place, he finished the year at -9.11, a drop of 10 spots to 65th place. In the process, McIlroy fell behind all of the following: Jack White, Old Tom Morris, Bob Martin, George Sargent, Tony Lema, Joe Kirkwood, Willie Fernie, Harry Hampton, Christy O’Connor and Al Espinosa.

Since he obviously has several years of potential prime performance ahead, it remains possible for McIlroy to reverse his downward trend.

To do so, however, he needs to halt a troubling tendency to flop badly at big events. Since 2016, McIlroy has missed the cut three times at the U.S. Open and once each at the other three Majors. That’s six missed cuts in six seasons, and since each missed cut damages a career score in the range of three points those performances are record-killers.

Without those missed cuts, it’s plausible to project that McIlroy would rank as high among the all-time top 20 today. What’s not possible to do is overlook the fact that he did miss those cuts – a lot of them, including the 2021 Masters.