The Greater Importance of Rory McIlroy's Least-Impactful Win

This week, Fried Egg Golf is looking back on the Year of Rory, and recapping the most interesting moments in the most interesting year of his career. Today, Brendan Porath revisits the Irish Open and unpacks why it may be McIlroy’s most underrated triumph of the year.

The least impactful win of Rory McIlroy’s year was the most clarifying reminder of why he could be the best player of his generation. We’ll use the term impactful instead of meaningful. The victory at home, the Irish Open, surely meant a great deal to him and many on that island. But its overall impact on the full picture of his resume does not approach wins at the Masters, an away Ryder Cup, the Players, or the early-season victory in the “cathedral” (his term), Pebble Beach. Listen to him this week, where a national open win at Royal Melbourne would jump ahead into the group above, and his own words corroborate the lesser importance of a "regular" old DP World Tour win.

“I want to win more majors,” McIlroy said in Australia, taking stock of his present and future. “I want to be part of more Ryder Cup teams. I'd say my records on either tour, whether it be the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour are probably meaning a little less to me as time goes on, and it's really just focusing on the majors and being part of that Ryder Cup team.”

So in order of importance, the Irish Open victory is probably at the bottom of the list. That is not to say it’s unimportant. So why is it as strong a signal as any of his generational perch?

It demonstrated the quality that has made his career so successful for so long. Giving a damn when the stakes are lower. Pushing and not just showing up. Overwhelming weaker fields and lesser courses where a talent like yours is expected to post. 

This kind of talent and success is, of course, a blessing. It can also be a burden. It can weigh on Rory, Dustin Johnson, and many of the other more prolific players of this generation. DJ with another top five or close call at a major? Cool, but your talent demands we see trophies! Another WGC win? Nice. Rory balled out at Quail Hollow again for another effing Wells Fargo trophy? Great. Show us a major win.

Winning a professional golf event, however, should not trigger skepticism about how good you can be elsewhere! The consistency raises the expectations for something more, which is a fair reaction. It’s the burden of success.

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These eyerolling responses to just another win can ignore the consistency and greatness it takes to grab those “lesser” events. To be clear, winning them is a net positive.

We’re going on about 17 years of Rory winning something, somewhere, and being a top-10 player in the world, with long residencies inside the top five and regular visits to the very top. There have been times when that waned. Fatigue can set in, form can waffle. Some years there is a drop. The post-Masters stretch this year for Rory was peculiar. I would not say he seemed super enthusiastic about this year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs. But while his contemporaries have had peaks, and this year may be Rory’s peak, they have come with steep valleys or entire disappearances. Scottie certainly seems to have all this, and maybe more, coming in the age group behind Rory. It does not matter if Scottie is at TPC Craig T. Nelson Ranch or Augusta National.

Rory has been Ryder Cup teammates with people who are now in their 60s and those still in their early 20s. He entered the top 10 in the world in February of 2009 – Kurt Warner was playing in the Super Bowl and John Madden was on the call. He’s never really left the top 10 in the world since, and this is the year we’re saying might be the peak?

It was September, he’d already achieved the career slam and the Ryder Cup loomed. I was just trying to prepare myself for another Browns opener and season of misery. In golf, we were just trying to get to Bethpage at this point. That might have also included Rory, with a rainy week at K Club, a tough first round finish, and an up-and-down final round seeming to put things in stall. He had already won an Irish Open at that very course, storming to victory with an eagle that showed a part of why his game has been captivating for so many long before the shots into 15 or 18 on Sunday at Augusta this year.

But a random September morning might have just generated the best crowd atmosphere and reaction for the year in golf, when McIlroy bombed in the eagle putt to force a playoff that he would later win. The thousands ringing the 18th green at the K Club erupted in unanimity. There was that scene captured in the background across the pond of an older man and a kid (presumably his) jumping together in each other’s arms. It was electric and could be felt through the TV across an ocean.

Rory’s 2025 Irish Open win will not be the one at the top of the career retrospective. The event was not as important as the Masters, but it still made you feel something a little different watching the player deliver and the crowd respond in the way it did. These weeks and wins matter to the full picture.

“Moments like this, these are the things you’re going to remember well after your career is over,” he said on the 18th green. Adding to an already all-time year when the stakes are lower is what the best do. Winning all the stuff in between the majors builds the context for more meaning and impact when those majors do come around each year. Combine those performances, like the blitz at the Irish Open, with the career peaks, which came back in a major way this year, and you have a legend of a sport delivering his best. 

No one in this generation has been better, for longer. The Irish Open win was a reminder of why.