PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — There’s a warning sign on the 18th tee box at Pebble Beach that could serve as course advice.
“Sitting on the fence is prohibited.”
The genius of Pebble Beach exists in extremes. Jagged rocks, foreboding waves, gigantic dunes and little greenery. Among the many skills needed to succeed here are: decisiveness Probably the most important. You may not sit on the fence during the victory celebration on the 18th tee box and 18th green.
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Rory McIlroy knows this better than anyone. Anyone with even a passing interest in golf understood what McIlroy meant last February when he suggested his first win at Pebble Beach meant a little more.
“There are some things you could call cathedrals of golf,” McIlroy said at the time. “Here, Augusta, St. Andrews, maybe we can add a few more there. I’ve had big zeros on everything that comes here. To knock one out at Pebble is pretty cool.”
Of course, anyone with even the slightest interest in golf knows what happened after the win at Pebble Beach. It was his third career win at The Players Championship and a career-changing Masters victory, a defining victory in a sports-shaking Grand Slam.
When this book is written, that last victory at Augusta will be remembered as the one that kicked down the door for McIlroy. But it’s his beginning Victory at Pebble Beach in 2025 broke that key.
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“I’m a sports historian and I remember every championship that was played here,” McIlroy said at the time, eerily foreshadowing the history he would soon make at Augusta. “And it’s great to be able to add my name to that list.”
Now in 2026, the historian has been returned to the library. With no more major championships to conquer or a Road Rider Cup to win, McIlroy was forced to reset his goals. And in doing so, he had the opportunity to face new questions such as: Which “cathedral” will come next?
On Friday at Pebble Beach, the same day McIlroy entered contention heading into the weekend by shooting five under par, the Grand Slam winner faced that question himself for the first time.
“There are places we haven’t won yet, so we want to win,” McIlroy said. “St. Andrews is one of them. Riviera next week will be another. Riviera and Muirfield Village are two. It’s a great golf course, but who’s hosting the event? You know, Tiger and Jack. I won at Bay Hill, but not while Ernie was there. So it would be great to win both tournaments while those two are still alive.”
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And perhaps the biggest standout win on McIlroy’s list? The single most elusive major championship venue in sports is the home of golf.
“There’s a lot of historic golf courses. There’s a lot of old U.S. Open venues and great things happened there,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, this is definitely one, Augusta is another, and I don’t think it’s the last, but the biggest one on the list is probably St. Andrews.”
McIlroy will have at least one more chance to win big at the Old Course in the prime of his career. It will be in 2027, just after his 38th birthday, when golf will return to St. Andrews for the 155th British Open.
These are certainly aspirations for Champagne, but it would be foolish to dismiss them as trivial. As McIlroy learned at Pebble Beach last February (and at Augusta National in April), breakthroughs often occur multiple times.
And when it comes to choosing his spot? Well, McIlroy is certainly not sitting on the fence.
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