Rory McIlroy: 'I was done. I didn't want to see golf again until 2022'

WALK TO THE SUMMIT: McIlroy strides up the 17th at The Summit Club on Sunday.

WITH his 20th PGA Tour win on board, Rory McIlroy fessed up: He almost never got to Las Vegas for Sunday's CJ Cup win. In the depths of Ryder Cup despair, he'd all but decided to throw away the clubs until the new year.

"On the Saturday night of the Ryder Cup ... I was done with golf. I didn't want to see golf again until 2022," he told reporters. "Sunday night at the Ryder Cup I thought, 'Go to Vegas, go to CJ and try to build on this little bit of a breakthrough that I've had."

The Ryder Cup emotions proved to be a line in the sand in some ways: “I get more emotional thinking about that than even thinking about this,” said McIlroy, having just put the finishing touches to a one shot victory. 

“There was a lot of reflection the last couple weeks and this is what I need to do. I just need to play golf, I need to simplify it, I need to just be me. I think for the last few months I was maybe trying to be someone else to try to get better, and I sort of realised that being me is enough and being me, I can do things like this.

“The whole week leading up to this, all I did on the range was try to visualise every shot that I hit, try to see draws, see fades, see high, see low and really just play around with it,” said McIlroy, who jumps back up to eighth in the world rankings. 

“The more and more I did that and the more it feels comfortable on the course doing that, and that's playing golf. That's getting back to hitting shots, and when it boils down to it, that's all you need to do out there is hit the shots. Sometimes I forgot that in a quest to try to be too perfect probably, but this week was a great reminder that you don't need to be perfect to be a great golfer.”

What he is closing in on though if lifetime membership of the PGA Tour - not that he's really going to struggle to earn his playing privileges.

"It's pretty significant. I mean, I think when you can do something to achieve lifetime membership on Tour – I still need to play another couple years after this one to actually get it, but that's great," McIlroy said.

"So, by the time I'm 34, 35, not having to worry about minimums on Tour and being able to really set a schedule, and especially at that point when kids will be getting into school age and maybe wanting to spend a little bit more time at home, that's important. When you look to the bigger things in life, getting to that level, I can pick and choose where I play nowadays anyway, but that makes it even better and less of a burden, I guess."

McIlroy becomes the 39th player with at least 20 wins on Tour and is T-35 on the all-time list. He’s tied with Greg Norman for seventh among international-born PGA Tour winners.