Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy believes a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games could well be the biggest achievement in his career since 2014.
McIlroy has famously not won a Major since lifting the second of his PGA Championship titles at Valhalla, going on to endure several heart-breaking near misses - including at the recent US Open when he lost by a stroke to Bryson DeChambeau.
The 35-year-old has claimed 17 PGA Tour and six DP World Tour trophies since, including three Tour Championships and The Players, while leading Team Europe to a trio of Ryder Cup victories.
Yet, the pursuit to add Major No.5 has been a forlorn one, not helped by falling short in a seven-man playoff for bronze at the Tokyo Olympic Games back in 2021.
But ahead of his third Olympics since golf returned from a 112-year break in 2016, McIlroy says his lack of gold-standard wins would make a medal at Le Golf National one of his great accomplishments in recent times.
McIlroy - who is representing Ireland at the Olympics - said: "It would be the achievement, certainly of the year, if not -- I think for me, it's well documented that I haven't won one of the 'Big Four' in 10 years. It would probably be one if, if not the biggest in my career for the last ten years.
"I've been asked this question a lot, 'where would an Olympic Medal sit in sort of the hierarchy of my career achievements?' And it's something I probably won't be able to answer until when everything is said and done.
"I think as golf is in the Olympics for a longer period of time, it will become more of -- I don't know if anything will be able to sit alongside the majors. We have our four events a year that are the gold standard. But I think this is going to be -- in time, going to be right up there amongst that."
Meanwhile, McIlroy's Irish teammate Shane Lowry said that going for gold at the Olympics is a chance for personal redemption given he fell short in his quest to secure a second Open Championship at Royal Troon earlier this month.
Lowry, who won the 2019 Open, said: "I felt I had a good chance to win The Open a couple weeks ago and I was really disappointed to not give it a better go on Saturday and Sunday.
"Straightaway after that, I sort of felt like 'I have a chance to redeem myself here in a couple of weeks.' For me, if you look at the media and what it was like back home yesterday when Mona (McSharry) won that Bronze Medal (swimming), I think if I was to win a Gold Medal and bring it back to Ireland, yeah, it would be pretty cool."
