Rory McIlroy will go into this week’s Open Championship with high hopes of ending his long wait for a fifth major championship.
The 2014 champion has won only one major since but a combination of the return to the same Royal Liverpool course and McIlroy’s recent form, in both majors and tour events, has raised hopes this may finally be his time.
Here, the PA news agency takes a look at McIlroy’s record.
Current formMcIlroy cancelled his scheduled Tuesday press conference at Hoylake but will still be the focus of attention as he goes into the Open on the back of a win at the Genesis Scottish Open, his third of the season after the CJ Cup on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
He also has runner-up finishes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the US Open and has finished in the top 10 in 10 of the 15 events he has played.
They include his last six starts, beginning at the US PGA Championship where he finished tied for seventh.
He matched that at both the Memorial Tournament and the Travelers Championship and was tied ninth at the RBC Canadian Open, in addition to his US Open and Scottish results.
The latter gave him a 32nd career win across the PGA Tour and European Tour, plus the 2013 Australian Open before it became a European Tour event. That tally includes four majors but none since 2014.
Major recordWhen McIlroy won the 2014 US PGA Championship at Valhalla, it was his second successive major and fourth in his last 15 attempts – coming hot on the heels of his Open win and following the 2011 US Open and 2012 US PGA.
He has won none of the 33 he has contested since, with a string of near misses building the frustration.
Aside from missing the cut at this year’s Masters, he has finished in the top eight at the other six majors this season and last – including second place in Los Angeles this year and the 2022 Masters and third in last year’s Open at St Andrews.
In 58 majors in his career he has three second- and four third-place finishes to add to his four wins, with 17 top-five and 29 top-10 placings overall.
The waiting gameShould McIlroy win this or a subsequent major title, it will come after one of the longest waits in golfing history.
Only 10 players have won majors with more time elapsed between them than the eight years and 347 days from McIlroy’s 2014 US PGA win to this Sunday at Hoylake.
Julius Boros holds the record with 11 years and nine days between his US Open wins in 1952 and 1963, with Hale Irwin also winning that event 11 years apart.
Henry Cotton, Ben Crenshaw, Tiger Woods, Lee Trevino and Ernie Els won majors after a decade-long wait, with John Henry Taylor and Bob Martin narrowly exceeding nine years.
Should McIlroy not win this week, any subsequent major would take him past the latter pair to the top eight of the list. Victory this week would place him 11th behind Willie Park Sr’s 1866 and 1875 Open wins.
Those victories tended to mark something of a swansong, with only Boros and Taylor going on to add a further grand slam event afterwards. At 34, though, McIlroy is younger than almost all of those players at the time of their win – Martin was 32, with Taylor (38) the only other under 40.
'Stars aligning' for in-form McIlroy ahead of PGA Championship
Rory McIlroy believes "the stars are aligning" for him as he approaches this week's PGA Championship on the back of a fourth triumph at the Wells Fargo Championship.
McIlroy hauled in leader Xander Schauffele to win in Charlotte with a fine finish to his final round, surging clear with a run of four birdies and two eagles within eight holes.
That saw the Northern Irishman – who also won the Wells Fargo Championship in 2010, 2015 and 2021 – card a six-under 65 as he won by five shots.
Max Homa, in 2019 and 2022, is the only other player to have won the Wells Fargo Championship more than once.
McIlroy has now claimed back-to-back PGA Tour titles, having won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans alongside Shane Lowry last month.
With the PGA Championship beginning at Valhalla Golf Club on Thursday, the course where McIlroy captured his last major crown in 2014, he feels he is building up a head of steam.
"I really got some confidence winning in New Orleans with Shane," McIlroy said after his final round.
"Coming into this week, at a golf course I am comfortable with, my golf swing feels more comfortable than it has done.
"Going to a venue next week where I have won, it feels like the stars are aligning a little bit. But I have a lot of golf to play and a lot of great players to try to beat.
"I am going into the next major of the year feeling really good about myself."
Even with a double bogey on the 18th hole, McIlroy played the final 11 holes at six under, leaving Schauffele with no way to respond.
"He's Rory McIlroy, you know?" Schauffele said. "He hits it 350 yards in the air downwind and he has shorter clubs into firm greens than anyone else.
"When he's on, he's on. Hats off to him for winning. He played unbelievably well."
McIlroy: Golf could learn from Northern Ireland peace process
Rory McIlroy has urged professional golf to find a "compromise" to the ongoing rift between the PGA Tour and the breakaway LIV circuit.
The world number two suggested they should follow the example of the Northern Ireland peace process, recalling the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, a peace deal that helped to end the Troubles in his homeland.
McIlroy noted the advantages of a deal being reached soon while admitting that both golf tours would have to compromise in the process.
Speaking ahead of this week’s Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina, McIlroy said: "I sort of liken it to like when Northern Ireland went through the peace process in the '90s and the Good Friday Agreement. Neither side was happy.
"Catholics weren't happy, Protestants weren't happy, but it brought peace and then you just sort of learn to live with whatever has been negotiated, right?
"That was in 1998, and 20, 25, 30 years ahead, my generation doesn't know any different. It's just this is what it's always been like, and we've never known anything but peace.
"That's sort of my little way of trying to think about it and trying to make both sides see that there could be a compromise here.
"It's probably not going to feel great for either side, but if it's a place where the game of golf starts to thrive again, and we can all get back together, then I think that's ultimately a really good thing."
Tiger Woods confirmed as part of PGA Championship field
Tiger Woods has been officially named as part of the field for next week's PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club.
Woods, who has clinched four of his 15 major titles at the PGA Championship, made a record-breaking 24th consecutive cut at the Masters last month.
A nightmare third round of 82 – his worst ever at Augusta National – meant he finished last of all players to make the cut on 16 over, but he immediately outlined his intention to play the remaining three majors of 2024.
On Tuesday, the 48-year-old was officially confirmed as being part of the field for next week's event in Louisville, joining 15 other past winners including Rory McIlroy and defending champion Brooks Koepka.
Two further spots will be allocated to the winners of this week's Wells Fargo Championship and Myrtle Beach Classic.
While McIlroy won the last PGA Championship to be held at Valhalla in 2014, Woods triumphed on the previous occasion in 2000, the first leg of the 'Tiger Slam' in which he held all four major titles at once.
Last week, Woods was given a special exemption to allow him to feature at June's U.S. Open, for which he failed to qualify after slipping to 801st in the world rankings.
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