I haven’t felt this good in a long, long time

After a mostly satisfying year on the course – and a tumultuous season off it – Rory McIlroy this week declared that he hasn’t “felt this good ahead of a major championship campaign in a long, long time”.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport’s Greg Allen following his nomination for the 2022 RTÉ Sport Sportsperson of the Year award, McIlroy reflected on a calendar year that included three wins, a triumphant return to World No1 and his unlikely ‘promotion’ to main PGA Tour spokesman in the wake of the LIV Golf fallout.

His wins included a third Tour Championship success – and with it a third FedEx Cup, but it was the near-misses that largely defined McIlroy’s season on the course.

A Closing 64 at Augusta National saw him nab a runner-up spot at the Masters while he led the 150th Open Championship at St Andrew’s heading into the final round, only to be pipped by the surging Cam Smith around the Old Course. Insult was duly added to injury a short time later when the Australian hightailed it off to the aforementioned rebel Saudi tour.

Rather than wallow in his inability to end a major drought that now stretches to eight years, the Holywood star insists his consistent form has convinced him that his return to the major winner circle is less a case of ‘if’ and more a case of ‘when’.

“I’m really excited for the Majors next year,” McIlroy concluded. “I haven’t felt this good going into a season – especially a Major season – in a long, long time.”

“[The St Andrews disappointment] was really tough at the time. I thought ‘this is the chance. I’m going to win that fifth Major finally after seven or eight years’, or whatever it was.

“It didn’t happen and it’s really hard to see the picture clearly at that time,. But a week or two after that, you reflect on it and think ‘I’m way closer to winning a Major now than I have been in a long time.

“There was disappointment at the start but then enthusiasm and excitement moving forward. It’s a journey again, I feel like I’m on this journey to win my first Major again, which is a really great feeling. Instead of having the burden of ‘he hasn’t won one in eight years’ it’s more like ‘well no, I’m just trying to win a major’.

“I feel like I’m on that journey, I’m getting closer, I’m laying the foundations and I’m sort of building it step by step.”

McIlroy’s return to the pinnacle of the World Golf Rankings represented another leg of his neverending journey, one that had seen slip all the way down to 16th in the world as his form – and swing – deserted him during the Covid pandemic.

“I had some momentum early in 2020. I was the No 1 player in the world, then Covid hit and obviously momentum stopped,” McIlroy explained.

“I went back out to play again in June [2020], I didn’t see Michael Bannon my coach for two months and my swing maybe started to deteriorate a little bit, maybe I didn’t have someone keeping a watchful eye. And then I maybe sort of dived into my swing a little bit…