DUBAI — It’s been a yo-yo kind of year when it comes to Rory McIlroy and what motivates him. There was always the Masters, of course, that final unchecked box of the Grand Slam prior to April 2025. But after the Masters? McIlroy admitted he fell into motivational lull that seemed to last multiple months.
After that lull came two events he’d long circled on his calendar: his home Open Championship, at Royal Portrush, and an away Ryder Cup. There was no problem getting up for those emotional contests. But now that he’s here, in the 11th month of a jam-packed year, polishing off what he recently called a “10 out of 10” season, the topic of inspiration rose again Thursday evening.
McIlroy had just signed for an opening 66 on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates — just a tick below his recent, stellar average here — when he was prompted with the topic of stamina. He’s in the Middle East now — for the DP World Tour Championship — and he’s headed to London next week. He’ll be on to Australia in early December. Last month he was in India, and before that took part in the most mentally exhausting Ryder Cup he’s ever played. Before that was his three-win, one-crowning-major PGA Tour season. So has this year taken something out of him?
Maybe a little, he admitted. But he added that keeping his mind right and his body right are endlessly connected.
“I was really inspired by what Justin Rose did at Memphis this year,” McIlroy began. “And then what he did at the Ryder Cup. And I look at what he does, you know, to play at this level at 45 years of age. I’d love to be able to say — I hopefully will be able to do the same thing in 10 years’ time.
“I look at him, I look at some of the things that he does. He’s got his own recovery trailer on tour, and he puts a lot of time in to just making sure that his body’s in the right place.”
He sure does. Rose sends that recovery trailer around the U.S. to any event he’s playing, outfitted with a red-light bed, colt and hot tubs, a stationary bike, fresh oxygen masks, a steam shower and infra-red sauna. That Rose cares about his fitness is no anomaly in these days of Strokes Gained: Body Time, but the work has driven results.
There was the win in Memphis that McIlroy alluded to, his 2-1 performance at Bethpage, but also his runner-up finish to McIlroy at the Masters, or that T3 finish behind McIlroy at Pebble Beach, or the T2 finish last summer behind Xander Schauffele at the 2024 Open Championship.
Despite Rose’s improbable accomplishments, there is something about a pro golfer’s early 40s that plays out much more like a real coin flip. You have your Rose types, or Sergio Garcias and Adam Scotts; maybe even Henrik Stenson — who won the 2016 Open at 41 years old. But for every one of them there are just as many who cross the imaginary threshold into their fifth decade and their game doesn’t seem to follow. Dustin Johnson, who turned professional around the same time as McIlroy and found his mid-30s quite fruitful, is finding his early 40s much less so.
The way McIlroy intends to ensure he’s the right side of that coin, he thinks, comes down to how much golf he puts this body through in 2026, particularly after (lengthy) banner seasons in 2024 and 2025.
“I think if I want to play another 10 years at the highest level,” McIlroy posited, “then, yeah, I’m gonna have to scale back my schedule so that — you know, it’s a weird one — I want to play less every year to play more into the future, you know?”
That “weird” theory — playing less to play longer — comes alongside the fact that his 27 events in 2024 were the most he’d played in a decade. Twenty-five events in 2025 feels like an upper limit.
“I think, as the years go on, I’m going to try to pare it back to 20 [events] or try to get as close to 20 as possible,” McIlroy said. “But the only reason is to look to the future and look to, okay, when I am Justin Rose’s age, I want to have the game and the stamina to play the way he’s playing at that age.”
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