Rory McIlroy and the Battle for Movitation

Motivation is a funny thing. It comes easy when you’re young. You’re vibrant, you have energy, you pop out of bed in the morning with a plan in mind and the goal of the day is to simply execute that plan.

I think of Bryson DeChambeau as the perfect example of this. He doesn’t appear to waste many days doing anything but trying to improve whatever it is he’s trying to improve. Maybe it’s his short game, maybe it’s his YouTube sub count and maybe it’s his triceps. Whatever the subject, Bryson is going to attack it and ace it.

A lot of that can be attributed to Bryson being this incredibly driven athlete who wants to be the best at everything he does. A lot of that can also be attributed to the fact that right now, in Bryson’s life, who he is is who we see. He doesn’t have a family or kids or a decade of scar tissue that comes with age and, in this sport than most others, failures.

If you asked Bryson to rank the most important things in his life and he was being as honest as one should be to such a question, I’d imagine golf is a part of his top three answers.

Which brings us to Rory McIlroy.

Rory isn’t Bryson. He isn’t the young buck out there trying to create content and wow a younger generation of golf fans that never knew they would care about this random sport.

Rory has all those things that Bryson doesn’t. He’s been at this, and in the brightest of spotlights, since turning professional in 2007. He’s got a family and a daughter and a life outside the golf course. I’d imagine if you asked Rory what a perfect day is for him at this juncture in his life, most, if not all of those 1,440 minutes would be away from a golf course.

Rory’s golden goose was the Masters, of course. The motivation to improve and get better and change the way he thinks and plays the game (and even talks to the media) was crafted around the idea of not winning a major championship but winning that major championship.

It was the major that put him on the map and it was the major that showed us very early that Rory was one of the most vulnerable sports superstars we have seen in quite some time.

This past week in Canada, Rory was asked about his motivations moving forward and then played one of the worst rounds of golf statistically that he has ever played as a PGA Tour golfer.

“I would certainly say that the last few weeks I've had a couple weeks off, and going and grinding on the range for three or four hours every day is maybe a little tougher than it used to be,” Rory said before the opening round last week in Toronto. “You have this event in your life that you've worked towards and it happens, sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.”

The quote is extremely fair and extremely honest. Rory has let us into his world more times than most golfers ever have or ever would over the last 15 years and it’s moments like this that remind you of how much more he shares than almost everybody else that has reached his level.

It also reminds me of a conversation I had a couple of years ago with a player that had risen up the rankings and had become one of the 20 best golfers in the world. It wasn’t the work he had put in to get to that point that surprised him, it was the work he had to continue to put in simply to maintain where he was.

Professional sports allows athletes to celebrate their grandest accomplishments but professional golf doesn’t. When you win the NBA Championships you have a parade and Disney World and a few months off to party, to relax and then to get to back into the swing of things. Even if you start the season carrying 10 extra pounds of fun, you have months to get yourself back to that place physically and mentally needed to climb that mountain.

In pro golf, there is a tournament the very next week after the majors. Rory, in theory, was supposed to be in Hilton Head four days after the jacket that had eluded him his entire career, pegging it on the first tee, right back into the grind.

Since the Masters win, Rory has played 10 rounds on his own ball and eight of them have been unremarkable. A couple, like that opening round at Quail Hollow and his second round in Canada, have been a bit shocking.

And now he gets Oakmont, arguably the toughest golf course in the world and definitely the one golf course that feasts on those lacking in motivation. Someone playing great golf coming in to an Oakmont U.S. Open can shoot a round or two in the 80s. In 1994, the three best players that week at the U.S. Open combined to shoot 13-over in the Monday playoff.

Rory isn’t going to win this U.S. Open. It would be silly to expect him to be ready come Thursday at this place with where his current game is and where his current mind is. He’s supposed to be enjoying all of this that comes with finally slaying the dragon that is his final career puzzle piece, yet we want more. But not winning this week or contending should be fine. He should be okay with that. He shouldn’t want to be grinding at the range for three hours after having an epic run early this season that ended with the lone hole in his career resume.

Will Rory get back to greatness? Absolutely. I think something that Rory didn’t mention in that press conference is looming and it’s something that Rory has consistently called the best event in all of golf. But the Ryder Cup is a few months away. His motivation there will be much greater than trying to win another big event on a ridiculously tough golf course.

But motivation is a funny thing. Right now, not having it is a part of the Masters winning hangover. It might have surprised a lot of us but maybe it shouldn’t have.