He will be 36 next month. He thinks he plays better now than 10 years ago. It is hard to say he is wrong.

Rory McIlroy has played golf for 18 years. He had never won three times before May. Now, he feels very free when he plays. This is not because of the money he has won.

He is the current champion of the Masters tournament.

Now he has a locker and a green jacket upstairs at Augusta National. He can also eat at the Masters Club dinner on Tuesday night. He worked for 11 years to get this. He must feel very happy.

After winning, McIlroy felt very relieved. You could see this when he put his head down on the grass. He said he felt happy soon after. You could also see this on his face when Scottie Scheffler helped him put on the green jacket.

McIlroy asked what they would talk about next year. He said he feels free because of this.

Would it be possible to schedule it for next month?

He has won all four big tennis competitions in his career. Maybe he can win them all in one year. The other big competitions this year seem good for him.

Next month, the PGA Championship is at Quail Hollow. McIlroy has won there four times.

Last summer, Rory McIlroy was asked a fun question. If the best player could choose where the final game would be, where would he choose? Rory quickly chose Quail Hollow.

The U.S. Open is at Oakmont. It is a difficult course, good for players who hit the ball far. This course should be good for him. But last time he played there, his first game was bad because of rain, and he did not play on the weekend.

The British Open is back in Northern Ireland, Rory McIlroy's home. The last time the event was at Portrush, McIlroy started badly. He hit his first shot wrong and did not play well enough to continue in the competition.

He feels more free than stressed when he comes back.

That is still far away, but it shows how people talk about McIlroy now. They talk about what more he can get, not what he didn't have.

Scheffler said he didn't know how it felt to be asked about winning all the big tournaments. But he said he understood a little how it felt when people said, 'You did this, but you didn't do that.' He said this can be difficult for people sometimes.

Brad Faxon, a friend who helps McIlroy with putting, said McIlroy can win many more big golf games now and maybe win 10 in total.

Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus said that young Tiger Woods could win 10 green jackets. This was as many as they won together. Woods won five.

In 2011, Rory McIlroy was about to win a big golf game. Another player said, "He is the person who can try to beat Jack Nicklaus's record."

Nicklaus has won 18 big golf tournaments, which is the most. McIlroy has won five. This is the same number as Brooks Koepka, but 10 less than Woods.

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

But this was hard for McIlroy, not just on Sunday, but for the last 16 years. He had not won a big tournament for 11 years. Winning the Masters was his dream, but McIlroy only had a good chance to win on the last nine holes two times in his 16 tries.

But players like Greg Norman, Tom Weiskopf, David Duval, and Ken Venturi had more problems. They had more difficult experiences.

McIlroy said two years ago that he would have many difficult Sundays to win another big golf tournament. He would have had even more difficult Sundays to win the green jacket, especially because it was very important to him.

McIlroy is now the sixth player to win all four big golf tournaments in his career. The other players are Woods, Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen. But only four of them won the 'career grand slam' in the way we think of it now. This is because winning all four was not seen as a special thing until 1960 when Arnold Palmer said it was important.

Another player, Sarazen, won the same tournament in 1935. Back then, it was called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, not the Masters. They started giving green jackets in 1949. The Masters Club dinner on Tuesday night started in 1952.

McIlroy is the only player who finished the last part of the Masters tournament very well. This tournament is special because it is always at the same place, and people remember it for a long time.

Think about how great this achievement is. He joined a special group of golfers. But some famous golfers are not in this group.

Sam Snead has won 82 PGA Tour events. This is a record. He has not won the U.S. Open. Phil Mickelson has won more than McIlroy. But Phil has also not won the U.S. Open. This is the only big tournament he needs to win to complete his Grand Slam.

Tom Watson won 39 golf tournaments on the PGA Tour, and eight big ones. Many people think Palmer changed golf the most. But neither Tom nor Palmer won the PGA Championship.

McIlroy started to think if he would only be someone who was almost famous. Winning the Masters helps him stop worrying about that. Now, we will see how much more he can do.