Rory McIlroy just had the best golfing season of his life, and is playing some of the best golf of his career, but he’s still number two to Scottie Scheffler.
The world number one won two major championships in 2025, one more than McIlroy, and won six times on the PGA Tour to McIlroy’s three. He was so clearly a level above the rest of the golfers on the planet that he could be compared only to Tiger Woods.
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The two greats are two totally different personalities. McIlroy is outspoken and impulsive, wearing his heart on his sleeve on the golf course and in press conferences. Meanwhile, Scheffler is calm, composed and calculated in nearly every facet of his life.
And McIlroy recently revealed what sets Scheffler apart from the rest of the golfing world.
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Rory McIlroy says what makes Scottie Scheffler the best player in the world
McIlroy was asked to explain how Scheffler has been able to maintain such consistently great play over the last few years, and the Northern Irishman went into incredible detail.
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He said, “I don’t think it’s just one thing that’s the reason why, but I think he has no ego when he plays golf. Doesn’t really care if he’s the longest, if he’s the straightest, if he’s the best iron player, if he’s the best putter.
“He just competes, and he gets it done. And sometimes it’s not always pretty. But when you add up the score at the end of the day, you’re like, ‘Oh, it was a 67 again.’
“I think that he doesn’t have many distractions. He lives a relatively simple life, where he could live a very – he has got access to everything and everyone in the world if he wants it, but he actively chooses not to go that way.
“And I think that works in his favour, and he has people around him that keep him incredibly grounded. I think his faith is a big part of that as well. He seems to just be in this mindset where, whatever happens on the golf course happens, it doesn’t make him any more or less of a man.
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“And he goes home, and he’s happy with his family, and he shows up the next day, and he plays golf again. I admire him so much for that because I’ve experienced in this world where you can be pulled in so many different directions. You have all these other opportunities that you can go and chase.
“And I’ve quite a curious mind. So I do go and chase those. But then sometimes I do look at Scottie and be like, ‘Maybe I wish I didn’t have so much going on’, because it works for him so well.”
Scheffler confirmed all of this in his existential outburst at Royal Portrush before last year’s Open Championship, and that also resonated with McIlroy.
Why Rory McIlroy related to Scottie Scheffler’s ‘What’s the point’ speech
Scheffler’s press conference rant last year revealed that he sometimes questions the point of playing golf, when the satisfaction he gets from winning doesn’t last long.
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McIlroy thought back to 2012 to explain why he relates to what Scheffler said: “I understood it. I empathised with it. And it’s true.
“You get that amazing feeling for, he said two minutes. I mean, it probably lasts a little bit longer than that, but life goes on, and it goes back to normal. And I had a little dose of it early in my career.
“I set a goal in 2012 that by the end of the year I wanted to get to world number one and I achieved it by the end of February. It came really quick, and I played well, and I got there, and I woke up the next morning, and I was like, ‘This is it?’
“I still have to go and brush my teeth like everyone else. I still have to go – you think it’s going to change your life and then it doesn’t, and then life goes on. It’s like, okay, well, what’s the next thing that you want to do?
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“And I’d say that that experience in 2012 is the closest thing I’ve had to what I experienced after the Masters last year, of like, ‘Okay where do I go from now?’ But you realise that you’re still a relatively young person, and there’s still more that you want to achieve.
“You just have to be very grateful and very proud of the accomplishments that you’ve been able to win and what you’ve been able to do, but then you also have to almost forget about it a little bit and move on to whatever’s next.”
It seems like a good problem to have, being so accomplished that you struggle to find your next goal. But it’s certainly something McIlroy battled with last year, and Scheffler too.
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