Rory McIlroy looks to take season from 'pretty good' to 'very good'

Winning an event in the FedEx Cup playoffs could help lessen the memory Rory McIlroy has of coming so close to winning the U.S. Open in June, only to see the trophy slip through his hands.

McIlroy enters the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, which starts Thursday, ranked No. 3 in the world. He's won two tournaments this year and has six top-10 finishes, and he said a victory in the first leg of the playoffs could change the narrative of his 2024 season.

"Overall reasonably happy with the way I've played this year," the 35-year-old from Northern Ireland said Wednesday at TPC Southwind. "Obviously, I've got three tournaments coming up to try to turn a pretty good year into a very good year."

His wins this season came at the Wells Fargo Championship and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Now, he's searching for his fourth FedEx Cup title, and to win it, he'll have to beat two of the hottest golfers on the planet -- Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele.

The two are 1-2 in the FedEx Cup rankings, immediately ahead of McIlroy. But he has climbed bigger mountains to win the season-end playoffs.

"(In) 2016 I came into the playoffs, I think in 36th, and was able to win, but then '19 and '22, I was a little further up and a little closer to the lead," he said. "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."

McIlroy is coming off his experience at the Olympics in Paris, where Scheffler finished 19 under to win the gold medal. McIlroy shot four sub-70 rounds, including a final-round 66, to stand at 15 under but tied for fifth and out of the medals.

It was his second Olympics.

"I played Tokyo with COVID and no one there and everything, so it was a different experience," McIlroy said. "But we played the practice rounds at the start of the week in France with no spectators just because they didn't sell tickets for the practice rounds, and then you show up on Thursday and there's 30,000 people at the golf course. It was very cool."

He knows what to expect at Southwind and has developed his strategy.

"We've been coming back to Southwind for so long that it doesn't really change much from year to year. You sort of know what to expect when you get here. Bermuda, pretty grainy around the greens, very good green surfaces, some of the best greens we putt on all year," he said.

"It's sort of one of these golf courses where it demands a little more precision than maybe some other golf courses that we play throughout the year, and if you keep your ball in play and on the fairway, you're always going to have a decent chance to make birdies and shoot a good score."

--Field Level Media