Rory McIlroy admitted on Thursday that finding the motivation to work on his game has proven a bit difficult after getting the Masters’ monkey off his back at this year’s tournament.
“I would certainly say that the last few weeks—I’ve had a couple of weeks off—and going and grinding on the range for three or four hours everyday is maybe a little tougher than it used to be,” he told reporters. “You have this event in your life that you’ve worked towards and it happens, sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.”
With his white whale slain, McIlroy said he’s taken the last two weeks to “reset some goals” for the current season.
McIlroy, 36, became just the sixth golfer to complete the career Grand Slam at April’s Masters, joining Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. It didn’t come easy—he needed a sudden-death playoff hole to best Justin Rose.
“This is my 17th time here, and I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” he told reporters at the time. “I think the last 10 years coming here with the burden of the Grand Slam on my shoulders and trying to achieve that, yeah, I’m sort of wondering what we’re all going to talk about going into next year’s Masters.”