Jaime Diaz says what is lacking from Rory McIlroy’s game which has stopped him winning at least eight major championships

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While Rory McIlroy will likely be the heavy favourite to still win a second Players Championship title this year, many will inevitably feel that the Northern Irishman should have had the tournament wrapped up inside 72 holes.

Rory McIlroy and J.J. Spaun will return to TPC Sawgrass on Monday for a three-hole playoff after the pair finished on 12 under par for the tournament on Sunday. It was Spaun who came agonisingly close to holing a putt for victory on the final green.

Few would have anticipated that three additional holes would be required. McIlroy led by three on the back nine shortly after the long weather delay in Florida. However, a bogey on 14 coupled with Spaun making a birdie on the same hole and on 16, meant that the pair could not be separated.

McIlroy will take plenty of positives from his week, whatever happens in the playoff. He already has one win on the PGA Tour in 2025, and played well enough to also take home the tour’s flagship event. However, there are one or two concerns about the 35-year-old heading to the Masters.

What has prevented Rory McIlroy from winning at least eight majors already

While McIlroy has played well, his game is far from bulletproof right now. And given his history at Augusta National, it is almost harder to not focus on the concerns about his game rather than the fact that he has won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and could win The Players.

Speaking on Golf Channel, Jaime Diaz suggested that McIlroy should have won so much more during his career – and would have done had he had more of a ruthless edge.

“I think the great players close, and Rory’s not an elite closer, I don’t think. I know he’s won 27 times, but if he had been an elite closer, he’d probably have eight majors,” he said.

“I think he’s changed his perspective. I think it’s what he’s proudest of. He said it today himself, he’s more complete. He needed to get more complete. I think for a while he thought, ‘I’m just going to be the best driver and dominate and overpower these courses, and that’s going to be good enough’, and it probably was when he was a young man. But as you get up in class and the rest of the field start to catch up and get better; I think he took a real education from Scottie Scheffler, from playing with Scottie, because Scottie is complete, except for perhaps a slight weakness with the putter. Through the bag, that’s the only one. He’s just a guy that Rory should model himself after. If Rory was as complete as Scottie, he’d probably be the best player in the world.

“In the biggest moments, relative to his ability and where he stands in history, if you matched him up against equivalent players, I don’t think he would rate among the better closers amongst those guys.”

The major misses which leave Rory McIlroy needing to rewrite the narrative

McIlroy is one of those players who is judged differently to the large majority of players. It has been clear from very early on that he has had the talent to be one of the greatest of all-time. So the fact that he has not won another major since 2014 is a huge disappointment.

And fans will remember a few occasions where McIlroy had the major in his grasp but failed to capitalise. The 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews was a sickener as he failed to make any putt of note on that Sunday, while it was a similar story at the US Open the following year.

And of course, if McIlroy does not win another major, the 2024 US Open is going to be looked back upon as a defining moment, with three bogeys in his final four holes allowing Bryson DeChambeau to win at Pinehurst.

But the great news is that McIlroy still has so much time to rewrite the narrative.