Rory McIlroy plans drastic change after 'long season' on PGA Tour following major heartbreak

Rory McIlroy has pledged to reduce his playing schedule following a gruelling 2024 PGA Tour season that saw him experience major disappointment at the U.S. Open .

McIlroy, who has four major titles under his belt, was unable to break his decade-long dry spell after squandering a five-shot lead over his closest competitor at Pinehurst Resort earlier this summer. He missed two short putts from his last three holes and Bryson DeChambeau managed to snatch victory from the brink of defeat - marking his second U.S. Open win.

The season wrapped up with the FedEx Cup, where McIlroy tied for ninth place. The three-time winner confessed he plans to lighten his schedule moving forward as Scottie Scheffler rounded off an impressive 2024, which included victories at the Masters and Olympics, as well as his first-ever Tour Championship and a $25million cash injection.

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"It's been a long season, and I'm going to just have to think about trying to build in a few extra breaks here and there next year and going forward because I felt like I hit a bit of a wall sort of post-US Open, and still feel a little bit of that hangover," McIlroy admitted, as reported by the Belfast Telegraph.

"I'm usually sort of like a 22 sort of person. But again, that was when I was sort of in my 20s and didn't have the responsibilities that I do now. I'm going to try to cut it back to like 18 or 20 a year going forward, I think." McIlroy had nothing but praise for Scheffler, who secured his seventh PGA Tour win of the season over the weekend. "I think his consistency, his attitude," he said.

In awe of his competitor's consistency, McIlroy expressed: "I feel like he just sort of brings the same demeanor to the course every single day, no matter what position on the leaderboard he's in. He's just amazing to just watch the way he manages himself around the golf course. We'll look back on 2024 and it's obviously one of the best individual years that a player has had for a long time."

He continued to sing praises saying, "He makes more birdies than I do and he makes less bogeys," and highlighted that the equation is simple: "That sort of adds up to him being a little bit better right now."

Reflecting further on Scottie's gameplay, McIlroy remarked, "I think the one thing I've always admired about Scottie is the amount of bogey-free rounds he shoots. If you just go back over the last two, three years and you look at how many rounds he shoots that he'll shoot like four-under-par, no bogeys, doesn't look spectacular at all, but it's just so solid, doesn't really put himself out of position."

McIlroy concluded with an emphatic note on the strategic advantage, "When you don't make a ton of bogeys, the field has got to do something really special to keep up."