He will be 36 next month, and he thinks he is a better player now than he was 10 years ago. There is not much proof that this is true.

In his 18 years as a professional golfer, which is half his life, McIlroy had never won three times before May. He has rarely felt so free. He is playing without pressure, and this feeling is not connected to the $13.2 million he has already won this year from his first six PGA Tour events.

He has clinched the coveted title of Masters champion.

He now has a locker upstairs in the Augusta National clubhouse. A size 38 green jacket will always be there for him, and he has a permanent seat at the Masters Club dinner on Tuesday nights. This took 11 years to achieve. It must be a great feeling.

You could see how relieved McIlroy was from his chest moving up and down quickly when he put his head down on the 18th green after winning. He said he felt happy soon after, and you could tell this was true from his face when Scottie Scheffler helped him put on the green jacket.

"What will we all talk about next year?" McIlroy said, first in Butler Cabin and later at the start of his news conference. He feels free because of this.

Might I propose we revisit this matter next month?

Now that he has won all the major tournaments in his career, it's a good time to think about winning all of them in one year. The other major tournaments this year seem likely to be good for him.

The PGA Championship is scheduled for next month at Quail Hollow, a venue where McIlroy has previously triumphed on four occasions.

Last summer, players were posed a hypothetical scenario: were the frontrunner in the FedEx Cup granted the prerogative to select the venue for the Tour Championship, where would they opt to host it? He was among those who responded, and McIlroy promptly nominated Quail Hollow.

The U.S. Open is being held at Oakmont, a formidable course particularly suited to powerful hitters. While this venue would ostensibly favor him, his previous appearance there saw him card a 77 in a rain-delayed opening round spanning two days, resulting in his early departure before the weekend.

The British Open returns to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, a venue holding particular significance for McIlroy, who seeks redemption after his previous performance there.

Upon his return, he experiences a greater sense of liberation than constraint.

While these developments are still some way off, they illustrate how the discourse surrounding McIlroy has shifted, moving from an assessment of his deficiencies to a focus on his potential for further achievement.

Scheffler, who was with him in Butler Cabin and for the trophy ceremony, said this on Tuesday: "I don't know what it's like to be asked about winning all the major tournaments, but I do know a little bit what it's like to be asked, 'You did this, but you haven't done that.' Sometimes that can be very hard for people."

Brad Faxon, a friend who helps McIlroy with his putting, said that nothing could stop McIlroy now and that he could win twice as many major tournaments. Faxon said, "He can go on to win ten."

Legendary golfers Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus once asserted that a young Tiger Woods possessed the fundamental skills to secure ten Masters titles, a number equalling their combined total. Ultimately, Woods achieved half that number.

Rory McIlroy was still 18 holes from winning his first major at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional when Padraig Harrington said, 'If anyone is going to challenge Jack's record, that's the person.'

With eighteen major championships to his name, Nicklaus is considered the benchmark of excellence in golf; McIlroy, with five, trails both Woods and Nicklaus significantly, holding the same number of victories as Brooks Koepka.

It's easy to get excited. This Masters is one of the great moments at Augusta National, like when Woods won in 2019, 2001, and 1997, Nicklaus in 1986 and 1975, and Arnold Palmer in 1960.

However, this achievement proved challenging for McIlroy, particularly on that Sunday, but also throughout the preceding sixteen years. It had been over a decade since his last major victory, and despite aspiring to conquer the Masters, McIlroy had only approached the back nine with a credible opportunity to win on two occasions in his sixteen previous attempts.

However, players such as Greg Norman, Tom Weiskopf, David Duval, and Ken Venturi appeared far more affected by their experiences, suggesting they had endured greater emotional burdens.

Two years ago, after almost winning the U.S. Open, McIlroy said he would have '100 Sundays like this' to win another major tournament. He would have gone through 1,000 Sundays to win a green jacket, especially because so much was important about it.

McIlroy is now the sixth player to win the career Grand Slam, joining Woods, Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen. However, only four of them actually won the career slam as we know it today, because the idea of a career slam wasn't official until Arnold Palmer said it was in 1960.

Sarazen stands as the sole other player to achieve this feat at the Masters, securing his victory in 1935 when the event was in its second iteration and went by the name the Augusta National Invitation Tournament.

McIlroy is truly the only player to win the last part at the Masters, which is special because it's the only major tournament always held on the same course, making this achievement very significant.

To understand how big this achievement is, you need to think about not only the players he is now as good as, but also the famous players who are not considered among the very best in golf history.

Sam Snead holds a share of the PGA Tour record with 82 career victories, a tally not bolstered by a U.S. Open win. Phil Mickelson has surpassed McIlroy's accomplishments, with the notable exception of that elusive Grand Slam component (the U.S. Open).

Tom Watson accumulated 39 PGA Tour victories and eight major championships, while Palmer is widely considered the most significant figure in contemporary golf; however, neither secured a PGA Championship title.

McIlroy began to contemplate whether he too would join the ranks of the 'almost' greats. The Masters victory liberates him from that psychological weight. Now, the pertinent question is the extent of his future achievements.