After a mostly satisfying year on the course - and a tumultuous season off it - Rory McIlroy this week declared that he hasn't "felt this good ahead of a major championship campaign in a long, long time".
Speaking to RTÉ Sport's Greg Allen following his nomination for the 2022 RTÉ Sport Sportsperson of the Year award, McIlroy reflected on a calendar year that included three wins, a triumphant return to World No1 and his unlikely 'promotion' to main PGA Tour spokesman in the wake of the LIV Golf fallout.
His wins included a third Tour Championship success - and with it a third FedEx Cup, but it was the near-misses that largely defined McIlroy's season on the course.
A Closing 64 at Augusta National saw him nab a runner-up spot at the Masters while he led the 150th Open Championship at St Andrew's heading into the final round, only to be pipped by the surging Cam Smith around the Old Course. Insult was duly added to injury a short time later when the Australian hightailed it off to the aforementioned rebel Saudi tour.
Rather than wallow in his inability to end a major drought that now stretches to eight years, the Holywood star insists his consistent form has convinced him that his return to the major winner circle is less a case of 'if' and more a case of 'when'.
"I'm really excited for the Majors next year," McIlroy concluded. "I haven't felt this good going into a season - especially a Major season - in a long, long time."
"[The St Andrews disappointment] was really tough at the time. I thought 'this is the chance. I'm going to win that fifth Major finally after seven or eight years', or whatever it was.
"It didn't happen and it's really hard to see the picture clearly at that time,. But a week or two after that, you reflect on it and think 'I'm way closer to winning a Major now than I have been in a long time.
"There was disappointment at the start but then enthusiasm and excitement moving forward. It's a journey again, I feel like I'm on this journey to win my first Major again, which is a really great feeling. Instead of having the burden of 'he hasn't won one in eight years' it's more like 'well no, I'm just trying to win a major'.
"I feel like I'm on that journey, I'm getting closer, I'm laying the foundations and I'm sort of building it step by step."
McIlroy's return to the pinnacle of the World Golf Rankings represented another leg of his neverending journey, one that had seen slip all the way down to 16th in the world as his form - and swing - deserted him during the Covid pandemic.
"I had some momentum early in 2020. I was the No 1 player in the world, then Covid hit and obviously momentum stopped," McIlroy explained.
"I went back out to play again in June [2020], I didn't see Michael Bannon my coach for two months and my swing maybe started to deteriorate a little bit, maybe I didn't have someone keeping a watchful eye. And then I maybe sort of dived into my swing a little bit too much.
"I felt like making my golf swing better was going to make my game better and the scores that I shoot better. I sort of went down that path for while, into 2021 as well, and realised that wasn't the path that I needed to be on to get back to the sort of player I know I can be."
A massive turning point on that path came during Europe's humbling 19-9 Ryder Cup defeat to the USA at Whistling Straits in September last year. Having suffered heavy defeats in both of his opening day matches, McIlroy was dropped from the morning foursomes on the Saturday. The man doing the dropping was his countryman, Pádraig Harrington, as the Dubliner tried to kickstart Europe's faltering challenge.
"A big moment for me was the Saturday at the Ryder Cup," McIlroy reflected. "It was the first time I'd ever been dropped - or 'rested' - for a session.
"It was very fair. I wasn't playing well that week. And it hit home with me that that was a very low point in my career. And then I went out on that Sunday in the singles of the Ryder Cup and was able to beat Xander Schauffele and that was the first moment that I realised 'okay, I think I know what I need to do to get back on the right path'.
"Two weeks later, I went out and won at the CJ Cup. It was a great win. Then fast forward, there's always little moments along the journey. That Augusta moment gave me such a shot of confidence, knowing that I can go to Augusta, I can play well, I can play with freedom, I can shoot 64 on the final day.
"Yes, it wasn't enough to win, but I thought it was a huge breakthrough for me at Augusta after all those years of struggle and playing carefully and tentatively. I proved to myself that I could play with freedom at Augusta and do really, really well."
It was a year like no other for the sport itself. The wrecking ball that is the upstart LIV Golf league has run roughshod over the traditional structures of the game. Many were tempted by the promised Saudi millions and plenty of big names made the leap. But McIlroy was vocal from the outset in his opposition to the Greg Norman-led initiative. A position the four-time Major winner felt compelled to take.
"I wanted to advocate for what I believed in. We're not solving the world's problems here, this is golf at the end of the day. I believe in something which I think is very different than what LIV golf is," McIlroy said.
"But I think one of the things that was good for me this year, I've spoken a lot of words about it but I felt like those words needed to be backed up with the actions of playing really good golf and I was able to do that. So I probably put myself under more pressure than I should have."
Turning his attention to Norman, the public face of the LIV experiment, McIlroy repeated his recent assertion that there could be no peace between the feuding factions as long as the opinionated Australian was still on the scene.
"He's become too divisive of a figure. There's no hope of dialogue going forward if he's involved," McIlroy insisted.
"He was brought in to be a disruptor - he has disrupted the game in a big way but I think now it's time for.... like, I'd love to play regular golf against Cam Smith and Dustin Johnson and Brooks [Koepka] and Bryson [DeChambeau] and all the guys that have left.
"We have a plethora of amazing golfers on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, but I think the game is healthier as a whole if we're all playing together. Greg's done his bit, he's been disruptive, he's been divisive - but now I think it's time, he's done his job, now it's time for someone to come in and cooler heads to talk about this.
"If that happens, the game of golf will hopefully end up in a better place than it is right now."
