The week before the 2022 Masters was not a great one for Rory McIlroy. His iron play at the Texas Open was abysmal, and he missed the cut at 1 over as J.J. Spaun went on to win the event at 13 under. That was his last start before the annual pilgrimage to Augusta National for an attempt at the most elusive championship in his life.
To pile on, after trying and failing to get out of San Antonio on Friday evening after the cut, McIlroy recalled being told room service at his hotel would take 150 minutes.
“I was like, let’s just wake up tomorrow and start again,” he said.
At that point in his season, though Rory was playing quality golf, he had fallen to No. 9 in the world just as Scottie Scheffler was introducing himself to the No. 1 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings. Fast forward six months, and McIlroy — on the back of a truly preposterous run following that missed cut — has now started his ninth distinct reign in the No. 1 position.
“If someone had told me on the Friday night of the Valero Texas Open when I missed the cut that I would be world No. 1 by October, I would have asked them what they were smoking because I would not have believed them,” said McIlroy on Sunday after defending CJ Cup and taking the top spot back from Scheffler after Scottie’s 30-week stint at No. 1.
Since that Friday in San Antonio, McIlroy has played 15 events worldwide and finished in the top five in 10 of them, including three of the four majors (the other major finish was still a top 10). He’s missed one cut in that span of time and has won three tournaments. This will likely end up being the eighth calendar year in which McIlroy won at least as many tournaments as he has missed cuts.
How unusual is it to have nine separate stints as world No. 1? Well, it’s the third most all-time behind Tiger Woods and Greg Norman (11 each) ahead of Dustin Johnson (seven) and Seve Ballesteros (five).
What’s more unusual, though, is how much time has elapsed between when McIlroy first became No. 1 (March 2012) and now (10 years, seven months).
The type of golf that must be played to become No. 1 in the world is fleeting. You have to be outrageously good to rise above all the other top talents in the world, and normally — if OWGR history is any indication — that summit only lasts for (at most) 1-3 years.
A total of 25 golfers have ever been No. 1 in the world, 22 of which did not have more than a four-year gap between their first and last (or most recent) appearance.
Johnson is a good example. He first became No. 1 in February 2017, and his last appearance there was July 2021. And that’s one of the longer runs atop the golf world. Johnson is one of the two best golfers of the last 15 years, and this four-year off-and-on relationship with No. 1 speaks to his sustained greatness over a long period of time.
Ernie Els is a better example of the norm. Els is probably one of the 20 best players ever, and he was first No. 1 in June 1997 and last No. 1 in June 1998. One year.
The three outliers are of course Woods (who had multiple stints of at least 250 consecutive weeks at No. 1), Norman and McIlroy. Woods went 17 years between his first and most recent (likely last) appearance. Norman went over 11 years. McIlroy could eclipse that depending how long he keeps the top spot this time around.
Perhaps even more remarkably for McIlroy is that he has not been ranked worse than 16th in the world since November 2009. At no time over the last 13 years have there been more than 15 golfers on the planet that were considered better than him. To illustrate how outrageous it is to perform at that level, take a look at who was in the top 10 in the world when McIlroy entered.
So few golfers stay in the top 10 or top 15 for that long, and certainly fewer return to No. 1 so many times over the course of that many years. Even though he never dropped out of the top 16 in the world, McIlroy said returning to No. 1 felt pretty far away even as recently as a year ago.
“Far away? Yeah, it did,” McIlroy said. “Jordan Spieth got to world No. 1 at Whistling Straits in 2015 when Jason Day won, and I didn’t get back to world No. 1 until 2020. It was just five years of top five, top 10, but it’s important, right? It took me five years to get back in 2020. Then COVID hit; I struggled through COVID. Coming out the back of COVID, sort of struggled a little bit, too. It’s been a couple years since I’ve been world No. 1.
“Yeah, it felt far away, and I am surprised that over the last six months I’ve played as well as I have to get back to this spot.”
Despite the longevity — and despite having accomplished the feat so many different times — McIlroy was emotional after his win on Sunday. He said that was because of who has been there alongside him for the return to the top.
“I think [what brought about that emotion was] just the steady climb back up to the summit of world golf and what it takes,” he said. “It’s not just me; it’s everyone that’s a part of my team. It’s not a solo effort. I just think about everyone that’s made a difference in my life obviously not over the last 12 months but ever. Just thinking over that last 12 months, there’s a lot of people that deserve a lot of the plaudits, and I’m the one that sits up here and takes them, but there’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that people don’t know about. All of that stuff combined is just as important as what I do out there trying to get these wins.
“It’s a team effort, and I think whenever I think about that, that’s what gets me a little bit choked up and emotional because it’s really cool to be on this journey with other people that you want to be on the journey with. That’s a really cool part of it.”
Ultimately, a level of sustained greatness like this is only achieved by a sociopathic competitor or one so deeply enamored with the game that he’s internally motivated to conquer it, no matter how long it takes. All the talent in the world won’t matter unless you have one (or both) of those attributes. While one can be dubious about McIlroy when it comes to the former, it’s impossible to doubt the latter.
“I feel like I’m enjoying the game as much as I ever have,” he said on Sunday. “I absolutely love the game of golf. I think when I go out there and play with that joy, it’s definitely showed over these last 12 months.”
McIlroy added: “The journey of trying to get the best out of myself [is what I enjoy]. That’s the satisfying thing. I never feel like I’ve figured this game out, I don’t think I ever will figure it out, but every day I wake up trying to get closer.”