The Players Championship: How Rory McIlroy can take confidence from TPC Sawgrass win into major season

Wayne Riley reflects on Rory McIlroy’s impressive play-off victory in The Players at TPC Sawgrass – his second PGA Tour victory at the season – and how it can add to the world No 2’s confidence heading into The Masters and the rest of the majors

Rory McIlroy couldn’t be going into major season with any more confidence.

It’s a very hard thing to go out and win the career Grand Slam and McIlroy would be one of only six players to do it if he did it. It’s going to be interesting to watch, but he will be full of confidence after his 28th win on the PGA tour.

You never get tired of winning big championships and McIlroy has done it all over the world – he’s a golfing superstar.

McIlroy wants a five-win season – having won four times last year – and he’s already got two wins early doors. And not just any two wins, two big ones in The Players and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Over the last year or so, McIlroy would have seen what Scottie Scheffler was doing. It has motivated him and made him go “well, if Scottie can do that, I can do that.”

Scheffler gave everyone a good whipping last year and McIlroy wouldn’t have liked that – he would have used that as a little bit of motivation. Everyone has to remember what Scheffler did last year and his nine wins worldwide, including The Masters, the end-of-season FedExCup and the Olympics.

We’ve seen that before in the sense that Justin Thomas has previously had a big season, Jordan Spieth was doing things like that when he first burst on the scene. Brooks Koepka has had a stretch of dominance. Tiger Woods, of course, did things like that every second year of his career for so long.

When you talk about the great champion golfers, it’s all about longevity and Rory has been here for a long time – more than 15 years now – and he’s been in the top 10 for most of that. He’s had a long, successful career and the other guys have got to match that.

The standout player of the past couple of years is Scheffler but he’s got to do it for a bit longer before we can say he’s like McIlroy. There might still be more to come from McIlroy – his best peaks may still be out there.