Rory McIlroy is a six-time major champion, one of six men to achieve the Career Grand Slam, and his $116 million earned on the PGA Tour is topped by just two others. But McIlroy is also like all of us, sometimes, on a golf course with the inability to do anything right.
That seemed to be the case for the Irishman in this past weekend’s St. Jude Championship, which is the first tournament of the 2026 FedEx Cup Playoffs. He shot 8-over during four days of play, not breaking par in any round, and finished almost dead last. He placed 66th out of the 68-man field, leaving him searching for answers.
Following a 2-over in Round 4, McIlroy took to the mic at TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee, and attempted to explain his performance.
“Obviously, I didn’t come in here with a ton of reps. It almost felt like the more the week went on, the more I felt lost with my golf swing a little bit,” he said.
“The swing wasn’t in sync. And obviously I didn’t do a ton of practice coming in here … I’m going to have to work pretty hard between now and next Thursday to feel like I have any sort of golf game to compete next week.”
Next week refers to the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the BMW Championship. It’s a tournament that McIlroy has won once across 15 starts—which came in his second playing of the tournament in 2010—but it’s also an event which is moving to a new course. The BMW Championship will take place at Bellerive Country Club in the St. Louis area, and McIlroy placed 50th in his lone start at the course, which came at the 2018 PGA Championship.
McIlroy was asked what specifically went wrong in Memphis and what he can learn from his performance to help him in St. Louis.
“To me, it’s more about the execution of what I’m doing right now. And the execution wasn’t there this week,” he said. “I’m going to have to put the head down and grind from now until Thursday to try to feel like I have any sort of chance next week.”
McIlroy mentioned a lack of reps entering this tournament, as he’s essentially only played the major championships, plus one tournament in between them, since the Masters. That’s a total of eight tournaments following the St. Jude Championship, which was his first time competing on a course since the British Open in mid-July.
That rust could be a reason for his poor performance. Before finishing 66th in Memphis, he placed 40th at the British Open. This two-tournament stretch is his only one this entire season in which he finished 40th or worse in back-to-back events.
The 2026 PGA Tour season has been one of highs and lows for McIlroy, with him currently experiencing the lowest of lows. But the peak of his season came at Augusta National Golf Club in April, when he won the 2026 Masters. It was his second Masters victory in a row, after last year’s win thrust him into the exclusive Career Grand Slam club. And it’s McIlroy’s only triumph this season across 14 starts. He does, however, have three other top 10 finishes, including at the PGA Championship.
Regardless of how he performs at the BMW Championship, which consists of only the top 50 players in FedEx Cup points, McIlroy has already qualified for the season-ending Tour Championship the following week. That event will feature only the top 30 players in FedEx Cup points, as his body of work this season, and namely that Masters win, guarantees he’ll finish among the top 30 even if he places dead last in St. Louis.
Being a part of the Tour Championship will allow McIlroy to seek a record-extending fourth FedEx Cup championship. He’s already the only golfer to win the title three times, with Tiger Woods (twice) the only other golfer with multiple wins. McIlroy’s last victory came in 2022.
While his recent play indicates it will be an extremely uphill trek for McIlroy to hoist the FedEx Cup trophy, he only has to look back a few months to see how quickly things can change on a golf course. In March, he was forced to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer Invitational due to a back injury, which was his first withdrawal from a tournament in 13 years. The next week, he returned to play but finished 46th at the Players Championship, an event he’s won twice before, including in 2025.
But even with two forgettable showings in back-to-back weeks, McIlroy then followed up that 46th place with his Masters victory. So McIlroy has been “lost” in the game of golf before, but he has shown it can be just a fleeting feeling, if he can quickly rediscover himself and his game.
