Rory McIlroy was asked this week how he wants to be remembered a century from now. His answer was both humorous and at the same time a personal admission that gave insight into the six-time major winner’s mindset as he approaches the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale this week.
The exchange came during his pre-tournament press conference at Birkdale ahead of the 2026 Open, where a reporter asked whether McIlroy worries about his legacy, and how he believes he will be viewed in 100 years.
“No, I really don’t care,” McIlroy said, as quoted by Golf Digest. “I would like to think that the people who love and care about me think a certain way of me, but yeah, I’ll be long gone. I’ll be dead. I don’t think I’ll be seeing what people say about me. I’ll be six feet under. I don’t think I’ll be a ghost.”
Rory McIlroy’s Legacy in His Own Words
The honest if slightly tongue-in-cheek answer was somewhat of a left turn from what McIlroy has said before when asked similar questions. In a March interview, he described wanting to be remembered as the best European golfer who ever played, name-checking Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros as the standard he measures himself against, as quoted by Fried Egg Golf‘s Kevin Van Valkenburg. He has floated the idea of winning every major twice, though he has resisted attaching a hard number to that goal, worried that falling short would brand the pursuit a failure.
So it would appear that McIlroy wants the memorable record, but has no interest in whether people remember it.
McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam with his first Masters win last year, then defended the green jacket in April, becoming just the fourth man in tournament history to go back-to-back, joining Jack Nicklaus, Faldo and Tiger Woods. The victory pushed his major total to six, tying him with Phil Mickelson among active players and slotting him into a 12th-place tie all time, alongside Faldo, Mickelson and Lee Trevino. He trails only Harry Vardon among Europeans, sitting one major behind Vardon’s seven, a gap he has openly discussed closing.
He has also won the Players Championship twice and racked up 30 PGA Tour titles as of this year’s Masters, a number that appears sure to keep climbing.
McIlroy’s Career Controversies
McIlroy’s history off the course is somewhat less contentious than many players of his stature, but it isn’t spotless. He drew backlash in 2017 for playing a round with then-President Donald Trump, a decision he later said had nothing to do with endorsing Trump’s politics.
He also faced criticism for calling the Ryder Cup “not a huge goal” early in his career, a stance then-captain Colin Montgomerie publicly rebuked, and for skipping the 2016 Rio Olympics while suggesting golf wasn’t among the events worth watching, according to Golfshake’s Will Trinkwon. In 2013, McIlroy left Horizon Sports Management, the agency run by close friend Graeme McDowell, sparking a legal dispute the two eventually settled.
McIlroy also stirred debate in 2019 when he defended Patrick Reed after Reed was caught improving his lie at the Hero World Challenge, arguing the scrutiny Reed faced had more to do with reputation than the infraction itself. More recently, McIlroy has acknowledged rough patches on the course tied to life away from it, without pointing to any single cause. Through it all, his public standing has stayed largely intact heading into Royal Birkdale, where he tees off Thursday still chasing the record he says matters more than anything written about him after he’s gone.
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