Rory McIlroy's goals have shifted from simply winning to creating a lasting career legacy

MELBOURNE, Australia – The challenge is simple, if hefty. Rory McIlroy wants to focus on winning the game’s oldest and most prestigious trophies at golf’s most sacred venues. An Open Championship at St. Andrews, a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and, this week, an Australian Open at Royal Melbourne.

MORE: Adam Scott is experiecing a remarkable career first at Royal Melbourne

McIlroy, the reigning Masters champion, spoke to reporters on Wednesday at the world-renowned Royal Melbourne Composite course and outlined what a career Grand Slam winner, at age 36, could possibly have left to dream about in the game.

“Yeah, there absolutely is,” McIlroy said when asked if there was another goal to pursue. “I've talked about trying to win at some of the most important venues in golf—this week is one of them.

“You think about the tournaments and the people that have won at Royal Melbourne and how highly regarded it is within the golf world. I was lucky enough to win at Pebble Beach [Pro-Am] this year for the first time, and obviously at Augusta. I'd love to win at St. Andrews one day. I'd love to win a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.”

The Northern Irishman is in luck for those last two. In 2027, the U.S. Open will return to Pebble Beach while the Old Course at St. Andrews will host the 155th edition of the links major.

“There are a few venues in our game that maybe just mean a bit more than some of the others and that's something that I would love to do one day,” World No. 2 McIlroy said. “I want to win more majors. I want to be part of more Ryder Cup teams. I'd say my records on either tour, whether it be the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour are probably meaning a little less to me as time goes on, and it's really just focusing on the majors and being part of that Ryder Cup team. I'm trying to build on the legacy that I've been building for the last 15 years.”

That legacy was immortalized over the past 11 months by a career-defining year that McIlroy himself called his best yet. With a green jacket win in April, he became just the sixth golfer in history to complete the career Grand Slam, having already triumphed at a U.S. Open, two PGA Championships and the 2014 Open Championship.

After his heart-wrenching playoff victory over Justin Rose at Augusta, McIlroy appeared lost for inspiration and many wondered how he could reframe his career having scaled golf’s Mount Rushmore.

He was T-47 at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, a happy hunting ground of his, and T-19 at the U.S. Open at Oakmont. A T-7 at Royal Portrush when The Open returned to his native Northern Ireland seemingly lit a fire he carried through the European fall events on the DP World Tour. McIlroy won a second Irish Open title at the K Club in a dramatic playoff before helping Europe to an away Ryder Cup win at Bethpage. In Dubai last month, McIlroy surpassed Seve Ballesteros in earning a seventh Race to Dubai title on the DP World Tour.

There is an encore, though. McIlroy not only wants to win the first Australian Open held at Royal Melbourne since 1991, but with a two-year commitment to the 121-year-old tournament (he is confirmed for 2026 at nearby Kingston Heath), McIlroy wants to restore the glory days of the Australian Open in the 1970s and ’80s, when Greg Norman, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Gary Player etched their names on the Stonehaven Cup.

To do that, not only does he need to win, but use his stature and influence in the game to create more standalone stages for national opens like Australia.

“If you look at the world of golf right now, there are three pretty big tournaments going on in the same week,” McIlroy said. “You've got Tiger’s event [Hero World Challenge] in the Bahamas, the Nedbank [Golf Challenge on the DP World Tour] in South Africa, and here. This tournament [Australian Open] has lost a little bit of what it had, say, 30 or 40 years ago.

“I think because there's so much golf and there are so many tournaments, the eyeballs are divided and the interest in every one of those tournaments this week is probably not as high as it should be. This tournament in particular because of the history, the tradition, deserves to be a standalone tournament, a week on its own, and hopefully one day they could put together a [global] schedule where the biggest and best tournaments in the world and the oldest and the ones with the most heritage can be elevated and stand on their own.”

For now, McIlroy is elevating the Australian Open with his presence. Augusta National choosing it as one of six national opens to extend the winner a 2026 Masters invitation helps, too. As does the R&A continuing to offer three spots into the Open Championship for the top finishers not already exempt.

McIlroy, the 2013 Australian Open winner at Royal Sydney, has long praised the tournament publicly.

"Australia has been a very big part of my golfing journey going back to playing the Australian Open as an amateur back in 2005," McIlroy said. “I think a market like this with amazing fans and the history that it does have probably deserves more of a consistency of big players and big tournaments.”

Players don’t get any bigger than McIlroy, and there aren’t many golf courses more celebrated than Royal Melbourne. He will play the first two rounds in warm weather at a reasonably firm and fast Royal Melbourne, in a marquee group with 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott and PGA Tour winner Min Woo Lee. They’ll tee off in round one at 3.05 p.m. Wednesday E.T for U.S. viewers (Thursday 7.05 a.m. local in Melbourne) and 8.05 p.m. E.T. in round two.

It feels like McIlroy’s quest to elevate the Australian Open is already underway. As for his other goal? He’s just got to win this week.