Rory McIlroy turning 30 with his best years still ahead of him

As Rory McIlroy prepares to turn 30 this weekend, the best years of his career may still be to come

When the clock strikes midnight on Saturday, a new era will begin in the career of Rory McIlroy.

McIlroy, in the field this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, turns 30 on May 4, the same day he hopes to be playing the third round at Quail Hollow. Appropriately enough, he will celebrate his milestone birthday at the same place where his PGA Tour breakthrough took place nearly a decade ago.

In 2010, just two days shy of his 21st birthday, McIlroy made the cut on the number at Quail Hollow then shot 66-62 on the weekend to win by four shots, his first PGA Tour title. The next year he won his first major championship at the U.S. Open at the age of 22.

Thus began a decade of dominance for the Northern Irishman. Since 2010, only Dustin Johnson (18) has more wins than McIlroy (15) on tour; no one has more than McIlroy’s four major championships. In golf’s modern era, only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods won 15 tour events and four majors by the same age as McIlroy.

The McIlroy who tees off this week, however, bears little resemblance to the player barely out of his teens who first won here. The talent is the same, but gone is the big, bushy hair and the youthful exuberance of a kid with his entire career ahead of him. Now there is a more mature McIlroy, a man with a new perspective and attitude and a wife.

McIlroy is now a veteran on the PGA Tour and can’t be considered one of the young guns come Saturday. For him, there is a dichotomy between how he sees himself and how much he’s grown over the past decade. “This life, it makes you grow up quickly,” he said on Wednesday at Quail Hollow. “It’s funny, I still feel like I’m one of the younger guys. But in my mind I don’t feel 30 either.”

“I was here when I was 20 and winning at Quail Hollow, but it doesn’t feel like 10 years ago. It’s weird.”

With McIlroy’s new-found maturity has come a profound return to form this season. He won the Players Championship in March to go along with six other top-10 finishes. He leads the PGA Tour in several key categories, including strokes gained: off the tee and tee-to-green.

But McIlroy is coming off a disappointing 21st place finish at the Masters two weeks ago, his worst of the season, and came up short of the career Grand Slam for the fifth straight year. By the time he goes to Bethpage Black for the PGA Championship in two weeks, it will have been nearly five years since his last major.

His career has had its share of peaks and valleys, but just because McIlroy will leave his 20s behind this week doesn’t mean he can’t add to his major total. Nicklaus won 11 of his 18 majors after turning 30; Arnold Palmer won six of his seven. Phil Mickelson didn’t win his first major until he was 33. And Woods has now won five majors since turning 30, and that includes an 11-year drought that ended at Augusta National in April.

Of the 16 players who have won four or more majors since World War II, all of them won at least once in their 30s. Only Seve Ballesteros failed to win after the age of 31.

Golf is a game that lends itself to longevity, as the 43-year-old Woods perfectly demonstrated. Just in the past decade players like Woods, Mickelson and Ernie Els have won majors in their 40s. Tom Watson had the Open Championship on the face of his putter when he was 59.

McIlroy might not stay in his prime that long. But after a Hall of Fame worthy career in his 20s, there is still so much more for him to do in the next decade.