He will be 36 next month and 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 playing golf professionally, which is half his life, McIlroy had never won three times before May. He feels more freedom than ever before. He says he is playing without pressure, and this feeling is not because of the $13.2 million he has already won this year in his six PGA Tour tournaments.

He has clinched the prestigious 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 will have a seat at the table for the Masters Club dinner on Tuesday night. This took 11 years to achieve. It must be a great feeling.

McIlroy's chest was moving up and down heavily as he put his head down on the 18th green after winning, showing great relief. He said, "The joy came pretty soon after that," and you could clearly see this on his face when Scottie Scheffler helped him put on the green jacket.

"What will occupy our discussions next year?" McIlroy inquired, initially in Butler Cabin and subsequently at the commencement of his press conference. This reflects the liberation he experiences.

Would the following month be a more opportune moment?

Now that he has won a career Grand Slam, it's worth thinking about whether he could win all the major tournaments in one year, especially since the remaining ones this year seem to be good opportunities for him.

Scheduled for next month, the PGA Championship will be held at Quail Hollow, a venue where McIlroy has previously secured victory on four occasions.

Among the players surveyed last summer regarding a hypothetical scenario - where the leading FedEx Cup competitor would choose to host the Tour Championship - McIlroy readily selected Quail Hollow.

The U.S. Open is being held at Oakmont, a substantial course favouring golfers who can hit the ball a great distance. This venue should be particularly advantageous for him, although during his previous appearance there, he recorded a score of 77 in the opening round, which spanned two days due to persistent rain, and consequently did not make the cut for the weekend rounds.

The British Open returns to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, where Rory McIlroy has unfinished business after his previous outing there resulted in a disappointing outcome.

His return is marked by a greater sense of liberty than constraint.

While that remains a distant prospect, it exemplifies the shift in discourse surrounding McIlroy, moving from discussions of his deficiencies to explorations of his potential gains.

Scheffler, present with him in Butler Cabin and during the trophy ceremony, remarked on Tuesday: "While I don't grasp the experience of being questioned about the career Grand Slam, I have a limited insight into what it's like to be asked, ‘You've achieved this, yet you haven't achieved that.' This can occasionally be quite demanding for individuals."

Brad Faxon, a close associate who assists McIlroy with his putting technique, asserted that McIlroy was now unstoppable and capable of doubling his major victories. "He is poised to win ten," Faxon remarked.

Famous golfers Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus once said that a young Tiger Woods had the basic skills to win 10 green jackets, which is as many as they won together. Woods only won five.

Before winning his initial major title at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, Padraig Harrington indicated that Rory McIlroy was the individual likely to contest Jack Nicklaus's record.

Nicklaus's achievement of 18 major titles sets the benchmark in golf; McIlroy currently possesses five, matching Brooks Koepka's tally and trailing Woods by ten.

It's easy to feel the excitement. This Masters is like some of the best times at Augusta National, such as when Woods won in 2019, 2001, and 1997, when Nicklaus won in 1986 and 1975, and when Arnold Palmer won in 1960.

But this wasn't easy for McIlroy, not on Sunday, and not in the previous 16 years. It had been 11 years since he won a major tournament, and even though winning the Masters was his dream, in 16 previous tries, he only had a real chance of winning on the last nine holes twice.

However, players like Greg Norman and Tom Weiskopf, David Duval, and Ken Venturi seemed much more affected by their experiences, having gathered a lot of emotional difficulties.

McIlroy declared two years prior, following his near victory at the U.S. Open, that he would endure "100 Sundays of this nature" to acquire another major championship. He would likely have tolerated 1,000 Sundays to obtain a green jacket, particularly given the considerable implications.

McIlroy is now the sixth player to win the career Grand Slam, joining famous golfers like Woods, Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen. But only four of them truly 'won' it in the way we think of it now, because the modern idea of the career slam didn't exist until Arnold Palmer said it did in 1960.

Notably, Sarazen remains the only other player to achieve the slam at the Masters, accomplishing this feat in 1935 during its second staging when it was known as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament; green jackets were introduced in 1949 and the Masters Club dinner commenced in 1952.

McIlroy is the only player to win the last part of the Masters, which is special because it's the only major tournament always held at the same place, making the memories there very strong. This shows how important this was.

To understand how big this achievement is, you need to look at who he is now as famous as, but also who is not considered one of the greatest in golf.

Sam Snead has the PGA Tour record with 82 wins, and his U.S. Open results don't change that. Phil Mickelson has done more than McIlroy, but he hasn't won the U.S. Open either, which is the only major he's missing for the Grand Slam.

Despite their significant achievements, Tom Watson, with 39 PGA Tour wins and eight majors, and Arnold Palmer, arguably the most influential figure in modern golf, never managed to clinch the PGA Championship title.

McIlroy started to wonder if he would be one of the great players who didn't quite make it. Winning the Masters takes away that worry. Now, the only question is how much more he can achieve.