There’s so much in McIlroy’s immediate future, with the FedEx Cup before heading up Europe’s defence of the Ryder Cup in Scotland, but the eight months he will need to wait till Augusta will now be an even more agonising wait.
Winning the Claret Jug at Hoylake gave him the third leg of the career Grand Slam with only the Masters Tournament left to conquer. Following the US PGA, Augusta now represents not only a career slam opportunity for McIlroy but a tilt at a third successive major.
A win at Augusta would be an outrageous achievement, but dare we dream of him going on to win four majors straight, with a win at the US Open at Chambers Bay? Only Tiger Woods has been in this rarefied air in the modern era but McIlroy is fast proving he’s cut from the same cloth, one of the precious few.
As Mickelson summed up: "He's better than everyone else right now.”
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