Rory McIlroy suggests how many years playing at the very highest level he still has left

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Rory McIlroy is older than all but two of the 23 other players who will be involved in the Ryder Cup later this month.

Unsurprisingly, Rory McIlroy was the youngest player on either team when he made his Ryder Cup debut back in 2010, with Rickie Fowler only a few months older.

The Northern Irishman has been one of the very best players on the planet for the best part of two decades now, with McIlroy first entering the top 10 in the world rankings in November 2009.

He has achieved so much in the game, including completing the Career Grand Slam at The Masters earlier this year. It was, of course, McIlroy’s fifth major victory.

Rory McIlroy suggests how many years he hopes to still play at the highest level for

But, despite struggling in months since his triumph at Augusta National, it seems that he is far from done.

Speaking to Off The Ball about whether The Masters win was as satisfying as he had dreamt, McIlroy noted that he hopes to be competitive at the very highest level for some time yet.

“Directly after, absolutely. I was trying to describe it to Gary there walking down the eighth hole – the reaction that I had, the heaving and the convulsions, my head was on the 18th green and I’m screaming, screaming, so that, yes. What I didn’t think about was how I was going to feel afterwards, in terms of getting motivated again to get going, and what am I going to do, because for the last decade my chase was to try to get that elusive Masters and win the Grand Slam,” he said.

“And now that I’ve done that, I think it’s just taken me a little bit of time to recalibrate and think about, okay, what are my goals going forward for the rest of my career? I’m still only 36, I feel like I’ve got a good eight to 10 years at the very top level of the game left. So I think at this point, it’s just about resetting those goals and giving myself more objectives to try to aim for.”

What Harry Diamond told Rory McIlroy after his Masters win

McIlroy’s win at The Masters marked the first major victory he has had with childhood friend Harry Diamond on the bag.

Diamond has come in for some criticism over the last few years, particularly in the wake of McIlroy’s agonising finish at the US Open at Pinehurst in 2024.

But clearly, McIlroy has no plans to find a new caddie. In fact, he suggested that he has his sights set on achieving a lot more together.

“Absolutely, a second green jacket, a second Claret Jug, a second US Open. Harry said to me pretty soon after I won at Augusta, ‘it’s great you won the Grand Slam, but I haven’t yet’, so that’s cool. It would be cool to be able to do that with Harry. One of my favourite things about winning The Masters was being able to do it with Harry,” he said.

The pair could potentially achieve one of McIlroy’s big goals in the coming weeks as Europe look to become the first away team to win the Ryder Cup since the Miracle at Medinah in 2012.

The good news for European fans is that McIlroy seems to have no intention of making this year his final attempt to win a second Ryder Cup stateside.