Rory McIlroy reflects on being a past champion at The Players Championship - “There’s not many places I go where now where I’m not a past champion”

Rory McIlroy has just about won everywhere he can possibly win in golf. With one exception, he has won all the Majors. He has won the PLAYERS Championship. He has 24 tour wins, so he's won plenty of different tournaments across his illustrious career.

Therefore, when he says something about winning at a lot of places, he's not wrong. It may sound overconfident, but it's a true statement. He is a past champion at TPC Sawgrass, where he's back for the PLAYERS this weekend.

Per Daniel Rapaport on X (formerly Twitter), McIlroy said this about having won the very tournament he's playing in:

“There’s not many places I go where now where I’m not a past champion. It’s nice.”

Whether or not he will be able to win there once again remains to be seen. There is stiff competition in the form of Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Jordan Spieth and many of the world's top-ranked golfers.

Nevertheless, McIlroy does feel at least a modicum of confidence since he has stood on the winner's podium here, and as he mentioned, in a lot of places he'll visit this season.

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Rory McIlroy defends Jay Monahan

Jay Monahan, who recently said he firmly believes he's the right person to lead the PGA Tour, has come under fire from many places for his role in the LIV Golf PIF merger. Bringing those two entities together on the tour shocked many players.

Xander Schauffele doesn't like it, and he has not been silent about his feelings about the commissioner. Schauffele said via Great Britain News Channel:

"Trust is something that's pretty tender, so words are words, and I would say in my book he's got a long way to go. He could be the guy, but in my book, he's got a long way to go to gain the trust of the membership. I'm sure he's got the support of the board, since they were with him making some of those decisions, but for me personally he's got quite a way to go."

Rory McIlroy, who has softened his stance against LIV Golf, opposed this thinking. He believes there's far more to the situation than just the merger, and that Monahan has done a pretty good job overall.

Rory McIlroy defender Jay Monahan

He said while speaking to the media:

"I mean, you look at what Jay's done since he took over. The media rights deal, navigating us through Covid, the strategic lines with the DP World Tour. I would say creating PGA Tour enterprises - we were just able to accept $1.5billion into the business."

He continued:

"People can nitpick and they can say 'You didn't do this right and you didn't do that right' but if you actually step back and look at the bigger picture, I think the PGA Tour is in a far stronger position now than it was before Jay took over."

McIlroy believes Monahan has taken the PGA Tour to a better place than it was when he took over. Perhaps it hasn't all been linear, but the tour has improved mightily in his estimation.