Approaching his thirty-sixth birthday next month, he harbours a conviction in his current superiority as a player compared to a decade prior, a belief for which there is scant countervailing evidence.

Across a peripatetic eighteen-year touring career—a significant moiety of his tenure as a professional golfer—McIlroy has hitherto failed to secure three tournament victories prior to the advent of May, a circumstance coinciding with an unprecedented sensation of liberation, a state of affairs tantamount to playing with house money, entirely divorced from the considerable $13.2 million in prize money already garnered from his mere six outings on the PGA Tour this year.

His ascendancy to the pinnacle of Masters competition stands as irrefutable evidence of his consummate mastery on the verdant expanse.

Henceforth, he is endowed with a permanent locker within the hallowed halls of the Augusta National clubhouse, perpetually safeguarding a bespoke size 38 green jacket, alongside an assured position at the esteemed Masters Club dinner on Tuesday evenings – an apotheosis meticulously crafted over more than a decade of arduous endeavour, culminating in an ineffable sense of accomplishment.

The palpable relief, manifest in McIlroy's heaving chest as he slumped onto the 18th green post-victory, was subsequently supplanted by evident euphoria, unequivocally underscored by the expression he wore whilst being assisted by Scottie Scheffler in donning the coveted green jacket.

“Upon what subjects shall our collective discourse pivot in the ensuing annum?” McIlroy posited, initially within the confines of Butler Cabin, and subsequently to inaugurate his press colloquy. Such is the scope of liberation he apprehends.

Perchance the ensuing month would prove amenable?

With the career Grand Slam firmly secured, speculation invariably turns to the prospect of a calendar Grand Slam, a feat seemingly within reach given the propitious alignment of the remaining major tournaments this year.

The forthcoming PGA Championship, scheduled to be held next month at Quail Hollow, finds itself situated at a venue where McIlroy has previously demonstrated an exceptional mastery, having claimed victory on four distinct occasions.

He was among the cohort of players who indulged a hypothetical query last summer. If the reigning FedEx Cup champion were to nominate the venue for the Tour Championship, what would their selection be? McIlroy, without demurral, designated Quail Hollow.

The U.S. Open is staged at Oakmont, a prodigious links favouring golfers with substantial drives, a venue that would arguably play to his strengths as capably as any other; however, his prior outing there was marked by an opening-round 77, extended over two days due to inclement weather, resulting in a truncated tournament for him, as he failed to make the cut.

The Open Championship makes its comeback to Royal Portrush, nestled in Rory McIlroy's native Northern Ireland, where he harbours a palpable desire for vindication. The previous staging at Portrush witnessed McIlroy, burdened by stratospheric self-imposed pressure, dispatch his inaugural drive beyond the fairway limits, culminating in a calamitous octuple bogey and an ignominious early exit.

His reappearance is characterised by a surfeit of latitude rather than a deficit of constraint.

Such eventualities remain distant, yet they exemplify the profound shift in discourse surrounding McIlroy, transitioning from an analysis of his deficiencies to a contemplation of his potential augmentations.

Scheffler, a fixture alongside him in both Butler Cabin and throughout the trophy conferral, proffered this perspicacious observation on Tuesday: "Whilst the existential weight of inquiries concerning the career Grand Slam lies beyond my personal purview, I do possess a rudimentary apprehension of the psychological burden inherent in fielding interrogatives of the 'you have achieved 'A' but not 'B'' ilk, which can, at times, prove exceedingly debilitating for individuals."

Brad Faxon, an intimate confederate who collaborates with McIlroy on his putting, posited that McIlroy was presently unencumbered and poised to exponentially augment his major championship tally, asserting, "He possesses the capacity to transcend his current standing and ultimately claim ten."

Once, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, titans of the fairways, proclaimed the nascent Tiger Woods to possess the foundational mastery requisite for an unparalleled ten green jackets, a tally equal to their joint aggregate; Woods, however, ultimately attained merely half that prodigious number.

With 18 holes remaining in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, Rory McIlroy, still seeking his inaugural major championship, was the subject of Padraig Harrington's prescient pronouncement: "If you are inclined to contemplate a contender for Jack's venerable record, behold your individual."

Nicklaus's eighteen major victories constitute the ne plus ultra in golf, a benchmark McIlroy now approaches with five, commensurate with Brooks Koepka's tally but ten shy of Woods's.

The palpable excitement is understandably immersive; this particular Masters aligns with Augusta National's most iconic junctures – Woods' triumphs in 2019, 2001, and 1997, Nicklaus's victories in 1986 and 1975, and Arnold Palmer's landmark win in 1960.

However, this proved an arduous undertaking for McIlroy, a perennial challenge that extended beyond the immediate Sunday and permeated the preceding sixteen years. Eleven years had elapsed since his last major triumph, and whilst securing the Masters title represented his ultimate aspiration, a meaningful contention on the back nine had materialised in only a meagre two of his sixteen prior attempts.

Evincing far greater spectral torment were combatants such as Greg Norman and Tom Weiskopf, David Duval and Ken Venturi, each burdened by a more profound accumulation of psychic lacerations.

McIlroy, two years prior following his near triumph at the U.S. Open, avowed he would endure a hundred such Sundays in pursuit of another major title, but would have willingly countenanced a thousand for a Green Jacket, particularly given the magnitude of what hung in the balance.

McIlroy now stands as the sixth golfer to achieve the career Grand Slam, placing him in the pantheon alongside Woods, Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen; however, the historical context reveals that only four of these individuals authentically "won" the career slam, given that the modern interpretation of this feat only attained recognition following Arnold Palmer's pronouncement in 1960.

The singular other individual to have accomplished this feat at the Masters was Sarazen in 1935, during the tournament's second iteration, then known as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, an era preceding the conferral of the now iconic green jackets in 1949 and the inception of the customary Masters Club dinner in 1952.

McIlroy, singularly among all competitors, achieved the final segment of the Masters, a tournament singularly held at an immutable location, rendering its recollections particularly indelible – underscoring the profundity of this accomplishment.

Contemplating the magnitude of this accomplishment necessitates not merely scrutinising the esteemed company he now keeps, but also apprehending the conspicuous absences from golf's pantheon of greats.

Sam Snead holds a share of the all-time PGA Tour career victories record with 82 triumphs, a tally from which the U.S. Open remains conspicuously absent. Phil Mickelson boasts a more decorated career than Rory McIlroy, save for the conspicuous lacuna in his own Grand Slam résumé—namely, the U.S. Open.

Tom Watson accrued thirty-nine victories on the PGA Tour and secured eight major championships; conversely, Palmer's imprimatur on the contemporary golfing landscape is arguably unparalleled, yet neither individual claimed the PGA Championship title.

McIlroy had begun to muse upon whether he, too, would join the ranks of the perpetually "almost" greats; the Masters has proven his liberation from that particular albatross, leaving the sole question of his future trajectory's ultimate altitude.