Rory McIlroy and the Quail Hollow win that started his legendary PGA Tour career

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In 2010, a soon-to-be 21-year-old Rory McIlroy entered the Quail Hollow Championship with back pain, wavering confidence and all of Europe waiting at home for their golden child’s moment to come.

A 36-year-old McIlroy returns this week, at the PGA Championship, on top of the world. McIlroy, now a Masters winner and career Grand Slam champion, showed up this week and said that he’s accomplished everything that he wanted in this game.

“I dreamed as a child of becoming the best player in the world and winning all the majors. I’ve done that,” he said Wednesday. “Everything beyond this, for however long I decide to play the game competitively, is a bonus.”

Grayer, stronger and in possession of a green jacket he wondered would ever be his, McIlroy is here this week in a different stage of his life. But the journey started at Quail Hollow, where he can still recall the exact clubs and yardages that helped him win his first PGA Tour event 15 years ago. He remembers that he hit 4-iron from 206 to set up eagle and make the cut on the number. That he stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before the final round, watching a boxing match. That his playing partner in the final pairing was another phenom of the moment, Anthony Kim.

Since then, McIlroy has 44 professional wins, four of them at this course.

“Whether it’s your first win or first major, whatever it is, those things stay with you,” McIlroy said.

A look back at who McIlroy was then — what kind of player he was with decades of potential in front of him — tells us a lot about the kind of golfer McIlroy could be at Quail Hollow this week.

“I think part of the reason that I’ve played so well here since is I had that positive momentum, those positive memories, and every time I come here, those good feelings get rekindled,” McIlroy said. “It’s been a good place for me.”

There’s one observation that resurfaces repeatedly as players speak of McIlroy in his late teens and early 20s: The young ballstriker had no reservations on the golf course.

“Naturally, at 17 years old, he had this fearlessness about him,” Trevor Immelman says. “He just didn’t know any better yet.”

Immelman remembers the first time he played with the young Ulsterman. It was the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie, and an amateur McIlroy approached him on the driving range, looking for a practice round pairing ahead of his major championship debut. Immelman obliged, and upon hearing the first strike of McIlroy’s blade irons against the firm seaside soil, he knew he was in the presence of a unique talent. Six holes in, Immelman’s swing coach at the time, David Leadbetter, joined for a pre-tournament stroll.

“Who is this you’re playing with? Who’s this young kid?” Leadbetter asked.

“Well, this is Rory McIlroy,” Immelman replied. “And he’s making me feel inferior in every aspect of the game right now.”

McIlroy finished as the low amateur that week in Scotland and turned professional shortly after. He quickly made his splash in Europe as a pro. In 2008, McIlroy became the youngest player ever to earn his European Tour card and had several close calls in big tournaments. In 2009, he hoisted his first professional trophy in Dubai. Then came his first major championship starts as a professional and a decision — an Atlantic Ocean-sized decision. McIlroy told the world that he was going to play his 2010 season in the U.S.

The transition did not come without its difficulties. McIlroy’s lower back was flaring up and his growing European fanbase eagerly awaited his American charge.

“Looking from the outside, he was suffering at that time,” Harrington says. “You can come out, you’re fresh and new, but then you have to get past that barrier of feeling like you belong. This is a problem for the European guys. It’s very easy to get lost in the States. I think Rory was suffering from that when he went over. I know he played events over there, but you have to start again.”

McIlroy has won four times at Quail Hollow. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

McIlroy was never supposed to play that week in Charlotte. After the Masters, he retreated to the motherland: the North Antrim Causeway Coast.

He played friendly matches at Royal County Down and Royal Portrush, where at the latter he posted a 67 in blustering conditions. That’s when he changed his mind. If McIlroy could post a number there, he could do it in the U.S. It might have been against his doctor’s wishes, but McIlroy decided to resume his rookie tour season after that visit and play Quail Hollow for the first time.

“I came over here excited,” McIlroy says now. “I came over here excited to play.”

Fifteen years ago, a light but steady breeze grazed the Quail Hollow fairways as a young Northern Irishman continued to live out his dream: Playing in the U.S. as a full-time member of the PGA Tour. The vision hadn’t dissipated as McIlroy closed in on the 36-hole cut. But the reality did look different than what the international prodigy expected and wanted.

McIlroy was on the verge of missing his third consecutive weekend after poor play at the Houston Open and the Masters. His best finish that calendar year in the U.S. was a T40 at the Honda Classic. The early-season stress took a toll on his L4 and L5 vertebrae. It was not the only part of him in need of some time off. In between the ears, McIlroy was a mess. He needed a reset — a moment to sort himself out. He did that in Northern Ireland, and the 2010 Quail Hollow Championship came next.

That cloudy Friday afternoon in Charlotte, McIlroy needed to go two-under in his closing holes to cash a check, make the cut and settle down the bubbling narratives. He’d already won his first European Tour event in Dubai. His crusade to win in the States? It wasn’t off to a spectacular start.

“Confidence is a strange thing. You need it,” says Padraig Harrington, who finished T7 in the tournament that week. “Rory had to prove himself in Europe. Then he had to prove himself all over again in the States.”

A 206-yard four-iron into No. 7 green (McIlroy’s 16th) set up an eagle three. McIlroy finished eagle-par-par that Friday afternoon — two-putting from 60 feet on the 9th — to make the cut on the number.

“The most important shot of the year, to be honest,” McIlroy said.

When McIlroy found himself in a moment of consequence that Friday afternoon at Quail Hollow, he suddenly had a window of opportunity when he least expected it. Free golf. A chance to secure his PGA Tour membership when he could have easily been stuck outside the ropes for the rest of the weekend.

Those three holes might have altered the course of McIlroy’s career. Those swings revealed a blueprint: Here’s what McIlroy is capable of when he puts his foot on the gas, finds a groove and executes the improbable.

McIlroy’s name only briefly surfaced in the Sunday morning news coverage of that year’s Quail Hollow Championship. A 46-year-old Billy Mayfair held the 54-hole lead, looking to win for the first time in 12 years. Tiger Woods had just put together one of the worst performances of his career: He missed a cut for just the sixth time since joining the tour, shooting 74-79. Phil Mickelson came down with food poisoning at the start of the week but somehow played his way into contention. Anthony Kim came into the tournament with a recent win in Houston, but he was battling a mysterious thumb injury. “Shaq fouled me,” Kim joked in his pre-tournament press conference.

McIlroy, meanwhile, flew under the radar until that wasn’t possible anymore. On Friday night, he decided to put his “old trusty putter” back in his bag. His ensuing third-round 66, with a bogey on the 18th hole, was the lowest of the day.

“I think this is a sign that I was relieved and I could play with a bit more freedom when I was just going into the weekend and trying to shoot the best score I could,” said McIlroy after the round.

Freedom is a feeling that McIlroy has been attempting to bottle up and never let go since he started in this line of work.

He spoke about it in light of his recent career-defining victory at the 2025 Masters. A victory that completed the fourth leg of the career Grand Slam and shut down a narrative that the Northern Irishman might never win a major again. He had close call after close call. St. Andrews, Los Angeles Country Club, Pinehurst — self-imposed blunders caused all of those to slip away. For 14 years, that 2011 collapse at Augusta National never seemed to escape his memory. McIlroy was candid about it after the fact. That was a burden. A big one. Now? It’s gone.

“Look, it was a heavy weight to carry, and thankfully now I don’t have to carry it and it frees me up,” McIlroy said last month. “I know I’m coming back here every year, which is lovely.”

McIlroy shot a course-record 62 on Sunday to win the 2010 Quail Hollow Championship. (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)

It isn’t totally clear what McIlroy will do now with all that built-in freedom. But maybe it is.

Just look at Quail.

In 2010, Sunday’s conditions reminded Mickelson and his caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay of a U.S. Open test. You just didn’t see a low score coming — Mickelson shot a 68 to finish second. That is, until McIlroy’s.

The details of the day are best communicated in numbers: A course-record-breaking 62. The lowest 18-hole card of the day by four. Six consecutive threes to finish the round, including an eagle tap-in and a 45-footer for birdie at the last. “That roar could be heard in South Carolina,” Mackay says.

“I remember thinking, and it’s so cliche, but my goodness gracious, what golf course are you playing? You just didn’t see scores that this guy was making out at Quail Hollow.”

McIlroy became the first player since Woods to win before the age 21 that week. One Sunday in Charlotte — but really one Friday afternoon — springboarded him. Not only in that calendar year but beyond. Now McIlroy was inside the Official World Golf Ranking top-10. Now he was consistently contending in major championships. Now he was winning the 2011 U.S. Open by eight.

“That could have been the biggest moment in his golfing career,” Harrington says. “Those three holes to make the cut.”

McIlroy returns this week, a man changed by time and experience. He’ll tee off with Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele in the marquee group. He’ll go to bed early and wake up just as early. He’ll go out and try to win a sixth major. But who’s counting anymore?

(Top photo: Streeter Lecka / Getty Images)

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