\n<\/p>\n
For the time being, there are more achievable goals that would serve to underline McIlroy’s greatness.<\/p>\n
“He wants to be known as the greatest European of all-time,” said former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley.<\/p>\n
Current skipper Luke Donald has already declared McIlroy as top of the pile.<\/p>\n
Winning back-to-back Masters moved him alongside England’s Sir Nick Faldo on six majors and one clear of Spain’s Seve Ballesteros.<\/p>\n
Jersey’s Harry Vardon remains clear of the modern-era set after winning seven majors between 1896 and 1914 – a record six Opens and one US Open in a time before the US PGA Championship and Masters existed.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there is already a compelling argument that McIlroy is the greatest player to emerge from Europe.<\/p>\n
It could not be credibly disputed on the basis of the statistics if he draws level with or eclipses Vardon.<\/p>\n
McIlroy has won 30 times on the PGA Tour – long established as the strongest test of a player’s ability – including two victories at the US-based tour’s flagship Players Championship.<\/p>\n
Outside his three Masters and three Open titles, Faldo won only three other events that count on the PGA Tour, although he played in a different time when the European Tour was stronger.<\/p>\n
McIlroy is also homing in on a record eighth victory in the European tour’s season-long race.<\/p>\n
Last season he clinched a seventh Race to Dubai title – his fourth in succession – to eclipse Ballesteros’ tally of six and leave him one behind Colin Montgomerie’s record.<\/p>\n
“As much as many of us might think that he’s already Europe’s best ever, he didn’t have as many major championships as Nick Faldo or Harry Vardon,” added McGinley.<\/p>\n
“Even though he has caught Nick he hasn’t caught Vardon. There’s always another level to reach and I think he has reset his goals in that regard.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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For the time being, there are more achievable goals that would serve to underline McIlroy’s greatness. “He wants to be known as the greatest European of all-time,” said former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley. Current skipper Luke Donald has already declared McIlroy as top of the pile. Winning back-to-back Masters moved him alongside England’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}