PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Rory McIlroy played 68 great holes of golf at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this week.

Those other four?

Well, there’s a reason McIlroy’s final round finished as the leaders were making the turn on Sunday.

McIlroy believed he played winning golf for 95% of his season debut start at Pebble Beach (well, 94.5% to be exact), but the other 5% proved costly. McIlroy made 25 birdies and two eagles, but finished at 17-under thanks to three double bogeys and one triple bogey that were the difference between contending and an early jet ride down to Los Angeles for next week.

“Even if you turn those three doubles into bogeys and that triple into a bogey, that's five shots and all of a sudden you're looking at having a three-shot lead,” McIlroy said Sunday afternoon, then just two shots back of the leaders after a standout bogey-free 64 on Sunday.

“But all in all, some really good stuff this week. Pretty encouraged going into next week for sure.”

Every day, it was something small that ailed him.

Charging up the leaderboard on Thursday, two inexplicable three-putts from short range led to a pair of double bogeys that sent McIlroy backward on a day everyone was going low. He started hot again on Friday, but made a mess of the par-5 14th hole after getting greenside in two strokes, only to walk away with a bogey that again stifled his momentum. McIlroy will be kicking himself for Saturday, in particular. He opened with birdies on Nos. 2 and 3 to vault into the top 10 before disaster struck on the fourth. McIlroy flared his tee shot right and off the cliff. Forced to drop in a precarious spot, he hit two different pitch shots heavy and barely got out of a greenside bunker with his fifth shot, eventually making a triple-bogey. He managed to play 3-under golf over the next 13 holes before another confounding double-bogey on the 18th.

That made his scintillating Sunday all the more frustrating as he played a remarkable round that ultimately fell quiet to the drama higher up the leaderboard. McIlroy shot a bogey-free, 8-under, 64 tied for the best round of the day as he finished up.

“One of the first starts back of the year, trying to get the sloppy stuff out of the way, which I feel like I did,” McIlroy said. “Obviously, a really solid round to play going into next week.”

There’s an argument that rust played a factor in McIlroy’s inability to mitigate the big mistakes, though he made two starts on the DP World Tour in preparation for his TOUR debut. He finished third and 33rd in those events, respectively, before two weeks off ahead of Pebble Beach. McIlroy said it was part rust, part poor decision-making and just a few bad swings. He called the two tee shots on Saturday that led to a triple-bogey and double-bogey “destructive,” but also noted that both just caught a gust and rode it.

“Everything feels in pretty good shape,” he said.

It’s the start of an intriguing year for McIlroy, who had the most emotional season of his career in 2025. He reached the pinnacle at the Masters, finally slaying the mental demons with a cathartic win that placed him in rarified air with a career Grand Slam. He underwent a crisis of motivation in the aftermath, sleepwalking through the next two majors before a home edition of The Open Championship in Northern Ireland awoke him again.

He put up a fight on the weekend but fell short to Scottie Scheffler, who was just too good. Then we won the Amgen Irish Open later that fall, another emotional boon, before being the mental and physical engine in Team Europe’s dominant Ryder Cup win on away soil. That’s more than most elite golfers achieve in their lifetime. It also led to an intriguing question: What’s next?

McIlroy would like to keep stacking wins at the cathedrals of golf. He did that here at Pebble Beach last year. He’ll have another chance at next week’s The Genesis Invitational at The Riviera Country Club. Asked what he likes about the venue, he said: “Everything.”

There’s also Muirfield Village later this year and a U.S. Open to come at Shinnecock Hills, one of the crown jewels of American golf. He’s got titles to defend at THE PLAYERS Championship and the Masters, too. That has all the ingredients for another emotional year.

There were encouraging signs this week at Pebble Beach. He just needs to maintain them for 72 holes next time.