No one can dispute the fact that McIlroy has regained the world number one ranking five years after having occupied that privileged place in the world ranking.
At the age of 30, McIlroy is having one of the most brilliant periods of his sporting career. The results leave no room for doubt: in the last eleven tournaments he had played up to mid-February – since his ill-fated participation in the British Open, where he was mowed down by the cut – he had scored two victories and seven other top 10s, finishing in total nine times in the top six.
In the current 2020 PGA Tour season, which officially began last fall, he has scored two third places (Farmer Insurance Open and Zozo Championship) and a victory, in the WGC-HSBC Championship, becoming the first European to win three World Golf Championships titles. It was his eighteenth triumph on the American Tour and his twenty-seventh international. Until mid-February he had accumulated earnings of 2,735,000 dollars and was sixth in the FedExCup ranking, which by winning it last year (also in 2016) brought him a stratospheric prize of 15 million dollars.
The consistency of the talented Northern Irishman since he entered the top 10 of the world ranking for the first time at the end of 2009 (only two years after turning professional) has been prodigious and unparalleled among his peers: he has never dropped below thirteenth place in the world rankings. He reached the top for the first time in 2012 after crowning a spectacular season that included his second major the US PGA, after the US Open in 2011, and four other titles. And he not only culminated the season as world number one, but also at the top of the European and American circuits. And on top of that, he beat the record of earnings in a year, previously held by Tiger Woods (in 2007, with 10,867,052 dollars, having pocketed 11,953,486 dollars (more than ten million euros) only in prizes. A small pinch in comparison with the succulent contract he has signed with Nike for a period of ten years and a value of more than 200 million dollars. To this must be added the one with TaylorMade, in this case for 100 million dollars and also for a decade.
This is the eighth time McIlroy has occupied the throne of the world ranking, where he is on his way to 100 weeks as number one in different stages, the last one before the current one in September 2015.
With his victory in the WGC-HSBC Championship last October (corresponding to the 2020 PGA Tour season), he became the first European to win three World Golf Championships titles. It was his 18th triumph on the American Tour and his 27th international.
His goal of returning to world number one has already been achieved. Now McIlroy’s goal is to taste the glory of a major again after his victories in the 2011 US Open, the 2014 British Open and the 2012 and 2014 US PGA Championship. His dream is to win a fifth major and if possible it should be the title he does not yet have: the Augusta Masters champion. The countdown begins.
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