Rory McIlroy: How Many Majors Will Golf's Hottest Young Star Walk Away With?

When Rory McIlroy wins a major, he tends to obliterate the field. Both his U.S. Open and now his PGA Championship wins were by eight strokes, both records. It's that lack of doubt in his victories that inspires a natural question:

Just how many majors can McIlroy win? 

People can't help but compare him to Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus, a comparison that is more apt than you might think. At 23 years and three months old, McIlroy has now won two majors. Nicklaus was a month younger when he won his second; Woods was four months older than McIlroy when he did the same.

Consider that Arnold Palmer didn't get his second major win until he was 30 or that Phil Mickelson waited until he was 35, and you start to see just how impressive McIlroy's achievement this weekend was.

So what do other golfers think of McIlroy's potential legacy?

Padriag Harrington, for one, thinks McIlroy could surpass the most magical number of all in golf: 18, the number of majors Nicklaus has won (via Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN).

"I said two years ago, when [McIlroy] lost at the Masters, that he could challenge Jack's record," said Harrington. "And now he's won one each of the last two years."

Graeme McDowell isn't willing to go that far, or even that McIlroy will reach Tiger status. But he does think that the young Irishman is special (via Reid Cherner of USA Today).

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It's tough to say that Rory is a Tiger Woods-type player. Tiger Woods is a once-in-a-lifetime type player, and Rory McIlroy is at least a once-in-a-decade type player. He's that good.

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Woods went on an epic run the year after winning his second major in 1999, winning three majors the next year and taking six in total over his next three seasons. He's also won multiple majors in four separate seasons.

Does McIlroy have the potential to display that level of dominance over a period of time?

Probably not. At the top of his game, Woods was the most unstoppable golfer of all time, hands down. McIlroy won his second major in his 16th try. As Tom Rinaldi noted Monday on SportsCenter, Woods had five wins after 16 major tournaments.

But McIlroy might have the potential to replace sheer domination with something that Woods has lacked late in his career: consistency.

Nicklaus stretched his major wins over a stretch of time between 1962 and 1986. From '62 to '75, he had only had five seasons in which he failed to win a major. He would win his final major—the 1986 Masters—at the age of 46.

That will need to be the course McIlroy takes if he ever gets anywhere near Nicklaus' mark of 18 majors, or even the 14 Woods currently sits at. Seasons of pure dominance don't seem to be in the cards.

In his young career, McIlroy now has two major wins. He also has finished third in three separate majors (2010 U.S. Open and PGA Championship, 2009 PGA Championship). Rarely has he strung together top-notch major performances in a single season.

This season alone was marred by a shocking run of poor play, including missing four cuts on the season (in a stretch of five tournaments). He recovered in a big way this season, but he still has a long way to go before we can anoint him as golf's next chosen one. 

I believe Rory McIlroy will finish his career with double-digit major wins, but I don't think he'll reach the heights of Woods or Nicklaus. Were I to predict a number, I would go with 10.

That would leave him in rarefied air, behind only the two aforementioned golfers and Walter Hagen (11) on the all-time list. Given his age and talent level, I think McIlroy has a whole lot of of major wins left in the tank.

But I don't think he'll ever surpass Woods or Nicklaus. He doesn't have the sheer ability of Woods, and I'm not sure he'll ever have the unwavering consistency of Nicklaus.

But we shall see. 

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