Tuesday on the range at Philadelphia Cricket Club, Jordan Spieth congratulated Rory McIlroy on completing the career Grand Slam at the Masters.
“It’s your turn next week,” McIlroy said.
Of course, Spieth can follow in McIlroy’s footsteps and become the seventh player to notch that feat by winning the PGA Championship next week at Quail Hollow Golf Club.
However, the task might be tougher for Spieth than it was for McIlroy.
“It’s hard, I think, for Jordan having to do—you have to go back to the same tournament every year for Jordan, but not the same golf course,” McIlroy said Wednesday in his pre-tournament presser at the Truist Championship. “I think it’s a little bit of a different—it’s a bit of a different proposition for him rather than me having to go back to the same venue every year and trying to, I guess, do that as well.
As much as you try to get yourself in the right frame of mind to just try to win the golf tournament and then let everything else happen, it’s in there. Consciously or subconsciously, you feel that.”
For years, the Masters eluded McIlroy. After a series of heartbreaks in Augusta, it took him 11 tries to win the Grand Slam. Spieth has been trying to win it since 2017.
Last week, after his final-round 62 at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, Spieth admitted that watching McIlroy at the Masters makes him feel he, too, can win the fourth and final leg of the career Grand Slam.
“It’s obviously a very challenging week for him,” Spieth told CBS Sports. “It was harder than anybody maybe ever trying to win the Masters. To be that far from his most recent major as well, and then to go do it—it was very inspiring.”
But it won’t be easy.
“You know that you’re not just trying to win another tournament,” McIlroy said. “You’re trying to become part of history, and that has a certain weight to it. I’ve certainly felt that at Augusta over the years. I’m sure Jordan has felt that a bit going into each PGA that he’s had a chance to do the same thing.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Explains Why Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam Chase Is Harder Than His.