Rory McIlroy owns three of the four biggest titles in golf, with victory at The Masters being the only thing standing between him and golf immortality: the career Grand Slam.
The Northern Irishman won the U.S. Open in 2011, the PGA Championship in 2012 and 2014, and The Open Championship in 2014the British Open in 2014.
But he's been stuck on four major championships for more than 10 years now, and he's probably ready to bite through his driver shaft at this point out of pure frustration for wanting to win at Augusta National.
However, this year might be different. It just might be that little nagging issues recently faced by his competitors are bothersome enough to cause the door to swing wide open for McIlroy, enough for him to slip into the green jacket he covets.
Competition is everywhere, but many of the top players are not 100%.
Scottie Scheffler says he's recovered from his ravioli-related hand injury but has yet to win this season. Xander Schauffele says he is over the pulled muscle in his rib cage area, but he, too, is winless. Collin Morikawa has had a case of not finishing off tournaments, much to his frustration.
It’s hard to believe that Justin Thomas hasn’t had a victory since winning his second PGA Championship in 2022. He recently threatened at the Valspar Championship, but Viktor Hovland, who had been lost in the wilderness of strange decisions, miraculously found his game and emerged victorious.
Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau are effectively MIA at LIV Golf (just look at the ratings). It’s obviously not impossible for one of them to win this week, but to win a major, everything needs to fall your way. Maybe the universe is finally trying to tell McIlroy that this is his year.
Players who win majors always say you need a little luck to go your way. Maybe these little issues are Rory's luck. Lord knows Augusta National owes him some.
Back in 2011, it looked like McIlroy was a lock to win the Masters. Up by four heading into the final round and still holding the lead heading into the second nine, his tee shot at the 10th hit a tree just left of the fairway and then caromed farther left. His ball was in a place where no golfer had ever been, near two hospitality houses to the left side of the hole, and it took an expedition to find it.
When he left the 10th green after carding a triple-bogey seven, he was two behind and went on to shoot an 80, ultimately tying for 15th. Goodbye, Masters. It seems like he has been cursed ever since. So is he jinxed? Or does the career Grand Slam itself have its own jinx?
The career Grand Slam was different back in the day
Why was the career Grand Slam something that was seemingly winnable from the 1930s to the 1960s and so difficult today?
Sure, the fields are stronger, but Ben Hogan still had to beat Byron Nelson. Gene Sarazen still had to beat the best of his era, a group that often included Walter Hagen and even Bobby Jones.
There may be another reason that factors into the struggles that today’s players have when even thinking about the Slam. When Sarazen became the first person to win the modern career Grand Slam with his win at The Masters in 1935, it wasn’t even called that. He was simply winning a new tournament Jones had started at his new course in Georgia.
The only Grand Slam people knew about at that time was Jones' Grand Slam in 1930, when he won the U.S. Open, The Open Championship, the U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur.
Hogan was next to win the Slam after Sarazen, winning the PGA Championship in 1946 and 1948, the U.S. Open in 1948, 1950, 1951, and 1953, The Masters in 1951 and 1953, and The Open Championship in 1953.
As you can see, Hogan had an amazing 1953, winning The Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British (in his only career appearance at The Open, by the way). He had no shot at the calendar Slam, as the PGA and the British conflicted with one another back then.
But even when he won The Open at Carnoustie, Hogan didn't know he'd won the career Grand Slam because it technically hadn't been invented yet.
Arnold Palmer effectively invented the career Grand Slam but never won it
Gary Player won his first major championship in 1959 with a victory at the British. Yet, Player was on the cusp of the invention of the modern-day Grand Slam because he was a contemporary of Arnold Palmer.
It was Palmer who, in a plane ride to the 1960 Open Championship, invented today’s Grand Slam with sportswriter pal Bob Drum.
Drum told me the story, and Palmer confirmed for those who would ask. I never doubted him on it.
What they talked about while over the Atlantic was what would it be called if Palmer won The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA.
Arnie had already won The Masters and the U.S. Open that year, and it was on his mind. What if he won the other two? Drum assured him it was the equal of Bobby Jones' feat in 1930, and that's when the Grand Slam became the Grand Slam.
The question was whether anybody but Palmer and Drum knew they had invented the Grand Slam in 1960. Probably not. The problem was that Palmer did not win the British that year, so the run of majors was broken. But there's no doubt he didn’t forget about it.
Palmer wasn’t the kind of person to go around saying, yes, we invented the modern Grand Slam when I went to play in my first British Open, but we didn’t mention it later because I didn’t win the British Open even though I had won the Masters and the U.S. Open that year.
Why would anybody talk about it? But that’s what happened. They were fixated on winning it in a single year, which no one has ever done!
Then, Player returned to the picture. He had already won a British and added The Masters in 1961, the PGA in 1962, and finally the U.S. Open in 1965, thus winning the career Grand Slam, although we still don’t know if they called it that then.
Sadly, Palmer never achieved the feat, falling a PGA Championship short.
Jack Nicklaus put the pressure on and Tiger Woods has only added to it
While we don't know if Player's feat was called the career Grand Slam, we do know the name was around the following year when Jack Nicklaus completed it by winning The Open Championship in 1966.
Since then, the weight of doing something that the great Jack Nicklaus had done has seemingly weighed on professional golfers. Jack, of course, racked up repeated Slams, finishing his second in 1971 at the PGA and his third in 1978 at The Open.
As mentioned, Palmer was not able to win the PGA and is certainly not alone in having just three of the four.
Byron Nelson did not win a PGA. Sam Snead was missing a U.S. Open, just like Phil Mickelson. Lee Trevino could not win The Masters. Raymond Floyd missed a British Open. Tom Watson was without a PGA.
Was it the weight of the modern career Grand Slam created by Nicklaus winning it and Palmer trying to achieve it that caused so many to try and fail since the mid-1960s? And was it not having a name that made it possible between 1934 and 1960? You have to give that some consideration.
Only Tiger Woods, who has the strongest mental makeup of any golfer in recent memory, was able to win it after Nicklaus came to the fore, also accomplishing it three times. And when he added his name to the list of career Grand Slam winners, the weight of the prize grew exponentially.
Of today’s active players, Jordan Spieth is without a PGA Championship, and Rory McIlroy does not have a Masters title. Mickelson is there without a U.S. Open, as mentioned, but that ship has likely sailed.
This could be McIlroy’s year. Maybe he will see nothing but four-leaf clovers as he walks the fairways at Augusta National. It’s never easy to climb the mountain of history, and that’s what he has to do to reach the Grand Slam.
And if not, we'll see what Spieth can do next month at Quail Hollow.