ATLANTA, (Reuters) – Rory McIlroy, whose season was interrupted by injury, said he just wants to get back to winning and does not care about the $10 million bonus that could come with victory at the Tour Championship.
“Luckily, that amount of money doesn’t sort of mean much to me anymore,” McIlroy said yesterday on the eve of the season-ending Tour Championship that caps the FedExCup playoffs and awards the bonus to the points leader.
“It will go in the bank and if I want to buy something nice, I will. I mean like it’s nice to think that you could win $10 million this week, but that’s not what excites me.
“It excites me to play well and to try and win. And the FedExCup is … one of the only things that I haven’t put on my golf CV and that would be more exciting to do that rather than walk away with a check.”
The young Northern Irishman has already won financial security for generations of family to come.
In 2013, McIlroy signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Nike Golf worth a reported $200 million, and he’s earned more than $28 million in his PGA Tour career, not counting tens of millions more from European Tour earnings and more still from other endorsements. However, the 26-year-old Northern Irishman regrets the loss of a chunk of his year after he injured his ankle playing soccer with friends.
McIlroy said he had learned some lessons from 2015, including that he should avoid putting extra pressure on himself as he believes he did when he was trying to extend his run to three majors in a row at year’s opening major, the Masters.
“I’ll still work as hard as ever in trying to get prepared and trying to get my shape in the best place possible to play those (major) tournaments, but not work at it for the reason of ‘I can make history here.’
“There was just this expectation of and knowing what was at stake, what could happen, instead of just going out and playing and trying not to think about all that stuff.”
Oh yes, and another lesson McIlroy said he learned.
“Don’t play football in the middle of the season.”
