Rory McIlroy hopes to use the next three weeks to “change the narrative” of his season as he bids to win the FedEx Cup title for a record-extending fourth time.
McIlroy has won twice worldwide this season but is all too aware of letting other chances slip through his fingers, most painfully in the US Open at Pinehurst and the Olympic Games in Paris.
As a result, the 35-year-old heads into the first playoff event – the FedEx St Jude Championship at TPC Southwind – almost 3,500 points behind Scottie Scheffler, the world number one having won six times on the PGA Tour before securing Olympic gold at Le Golf National.
“I certainly don’t want to sit up here and belittle my achievements at all this year and what I’ve done, but at the same time I expect a certain standard from myself,” McIlroy said.
“I’ve won a couple of times. I’ve had an opportunity to win a few more times than that and haven’t been able to get over the line. So I would have liked to have added a couple more to that win column.
“But as I said, there’s still three tournaments left in this PGA Tour season. I think I’ve actually got eight or nine tournaments left this year, but three on the PGA Tour to turn an OK season into a very good one.
“I think when the bulk of the season has come and gone and you’ve got this opportunity of three weeks to really, I guess, flip the script a little bit or change the narrative and what that season means, I think that’s a motivating factor and part of the reason that I’ve probably played well in the playoffs for the last three years.”
Asked if he needed to do anything different to get rid of the “nearly man” tag he gave himself after the Olympics, McIlroy added: “I just have to finish off tournaments better.
“There’s been glimpses where I have done it, like Quail Hollow (at the Wells Fargo Championship), for example. But obviously the US Open, Olympics.
“I feel like this year and maybe the last couple years I’ve just found a way to hit the wrong shot at the wrong time. That might go into preparation and trying to practice a little more under pressure at home.
“You go through these things in golf and you go through these little challenges and you just have to try to figure out a way to get through it and my challenge right now is that.
“It’s really good but not quite good enough to take home the silverware. It’s just something I’m having to work through.”
Scheffler has topped the FedEx Cup standings heading into the season-ending Tour Championship in each of the last two years but has relinquished the two-stroke lead that gives him on both occasions.
McIlroy overturned a six-shot deficit in the final round at East Lake in 2022, while Viktor Hovland wiped out Scheffler’s advantage by the end of the first round 12 months ago.
“I don’t really think about an exclamation point (on the season) or anything like that, but I definitely want to win the FedEx Cup,” Scheffler said.
“It’s quoted as the season-long race but at the end of the day it really all comes down to East Lake. I didn’t have my best stuff at East Lake the last couple of years.
“I’m kind of excited that they changed the course a little bit. It may give me some new vibes around there.”