Roger Federer Gave Rory McIlroy Some Important Career Advice

Rory McIlroy is on the back nine of his career.

That’s not necessarily breaking news. He confirmed it earlier this year at the Players Championship. But a lot has changed since then. He finally won the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam, while also adding another Irish Open win last week to his distinguished resume.

The 36-year-old, however, has maintained the same mindset.

“I don’t want to be grinding out here at 50 years of age,” McIlroy said Tuesday ahead of the BMW PGA Championship. “I’ll turn up and play the majors and have a nice time, but you know, whenever I’m done, I'm done, whenever that is. That’s certainly not right now, but I’m certainly closer to that point now than I was in 2007 when I turned pro.”

So what does that mean right now?

“Again, at this point, I want to play golf when I want to play golf,” the five-time major champion said. “I want to play in the locations that I love to go to and I want to play the majors and the Ryder Cup. That's it. I’m not going to be going by minimums or anything else. Like, I’ll obviously do my bit to make sure I keep my membership and all that on certain tours, but I’m going to play where I want to play.”

That means he’ll tee it up in new places. He plans to play in India later this year and will compete in December’s Australian Open. As the years go on, McIlroy plans to play anywhere that “excites” him.

“I don’t want to name a tournament, but you’re going back to the same place, the same thing 15, 20 years in a row, it can get a little bit monotonous and a little bit tedious,” McIlroy said.

And he feels that way at least in part because of a chat with one of the greatest tennis players ever.

“I had a chat with Roger Federer, I don’t know, a few years ago, sort of at the end of his career,” McIlroy said, “and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career. So some of the smaller [ATP 250 tournaments] events just because not a lot of people had ever seen him play tennis before.”

McIlroy’s not at that point yet, though. He still has the desire to win more majors, another Ryder Cup in two weeks and, this week, his second BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, the DP World Tour’s flagship event. McIlroy has played at Wentworth throughout his career and attended the World Match Play there as a child.

But entering the twilight of his storied career, appreciate McIlroy whenever and wherever he tees it up while you still can.