Welcome into the final installment of the Devil Ball Golf 18 for '15, our comprehensive preview of the new golf year. While the action may have started at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions on Friday, Rory McIlroy, a three-time PGA Tour winner last year, isn't in the winners-only field. His season starts during the European Tour's Middle East Swing.
Without question, Rory McIlroy is golf's biggest story heading into 2015. He's a Masters win away from the career Grand Slam at 25 and from an opportunity to hold all four majors simultaneously with a second U.S. Open title. (No one has settled on Roryslam or McIlslam yet.)
The expectations are sky-high for the Ulsterman because of how he played after announcing the end of his relationship with former tennis No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki. That week in May, he won the BMW PGA Championship, the European Tour's flagship event, at Wentworth Club, a venue that's always given him problems. Then, in a three-event stretch, McIlroy reshaped how we think of him.
He first won the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, the major no one saw coming given McIlroy's preference for parkland golf and his high ball flight. McIlroy dedicated the win to his mom, who saw him win a major in person for the first time.*
Then he returned to the U.S. to win his first World Golf Championships event at the Bridgestone Invitational. Firestone Country Club fits McIlroy perfectly, but the win was a statement that he wasn't done in 2014. A week later, he goes to Kentucky and demonstrates the guts and talent of a champion to outlast Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler for a second Wanamaker trophy.*
McIlroy didn't win the rest of the way, but was brilliant in the final three legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs and easily won the European Tour's Race to Dubai title -- in fact, despite skipping three of the tour's four big-points events leading into the season-ending tournament.
Feeling good about his game, equipment, management team and personal life, McIlroy should continue his winning ways in 2015. However, there's one looming stumbling block that could delay finishing off the Grand Slam. McIlroy's lawsuit against his former representation, Dublin-based Horizon Sports Management, is set to unfold in February.
The world No. 1 will testify in his own suit, which alleges he was coerced into an unfair contract, which he ultimately broke in 2013 to start his own company to manage his career. Win or lose, the preparation will take away from McIlroy's focus and flow heading into his most important Masters appearance yet. A potentially embarrassing trial and the prospect of a sizable financial setback if he loses could hurt him further.*However, McIlroy showed at Wentworth that he seems to thrive when everything is falling apart around him.*
So it is tepidly that I expect McIlroy to win the Masters this year and complete the career Grand Slam. However, it's almost impossible to ask for much more. The pressure of trying to own all four major titles at once may prove too much. The bad draw in the 2010 Open Championship, shooting a second-round 80 in awful conditions after an astounding 63 at the Old Course in Round 1, may lead McIlroy to press to win at the Home of Golf. McIlroy could rebound at Whistling Straits for the PGA Championship, where he finished T-3 in 2010.*
No degree of 2015 success for McIlroy would be surprising. What would be stunning is a step backward after the big leap forward a year ago. The world No. 1 is no longer a young phenom; he's a prospective all-time great. With that change in status comes a dramatic change in expectations from the outside, but rest assured that McIlroy has believed this is his course all along. That belief, combined with his skills, is really all that matters.
Read all of the Devil Ball Golf 18 for '15:



Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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