56 2GM Monday April 4 2022 | the timesSportGolf
5“
There is no problem
with Rory... he wants
it as badly as he has
ever done
McIlroy struggles during last year’s Masters, when he failed to make the cut, and he2009 2010 2011 20122009 2010 2011 2012123412134212
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243123460 shots62646668707274767880Round by round (number in circle denotes which round)Finishing position
Winner
10th
20th
30th
40th
50th
60th
Missed cut124314232010 Open Equals lowest
round in a major at St
Andrews with opening-day
63 but hits 80 in round two2011 US Open Captures
his inaugural major,
winning by eight shots20010 200111er in circle e cle dedeenotes which rounwhich dd)1west^12011 Masters Loses
a four-shot lead on
Sunday following a
final round 800 2Rory by
numbers£230m
value in
equipment and
apparel deals with
TaylorMade and
Nike4
majors won20
PGA Tour wins3
PGA Tour Player
of the Year
awards106
weeks as world
No 12,794
days since last
major18
years old when he
turned
professional1
only Northern
Irishman to win
multiple majorsR
ory McIlroy was visiting
Tiger Woods’s Florida
home when he saw four
shelves on which the
golfing icon had displayed
the trophies for his 15 major
championship victories. They were
the only silverware on show; the only
ones that count.
McIlroy thought it was cool, and
authentic, given Woods had always
been very clear that this was his
measure of fulfilment. But what about
McIlroy? Are we always going to
judge him on whether the four majors
on his shelf are enough?
By the time that McIlroy tees up his
ball at Augusta National on Thursday
for the Masters, 2,797 days and 27
majors will have elapsed since a puttThe McIlroy enigma: why has
Matt Dickinson looks at
reasons behind former
world No 1’s failure to
lift one of golf ’s most
coveted titles since 2014
at Valhalla dropped in August 2014
and he joined Bobby Jones, Jack
Nicklaus and Woods as the only
golfers to have won four majors by
the age of 25.
To have gone 7½ years without
another is an unfathomably long gap
for a player of such prodigious ability
— and yet, at 32, McIlroy is also
younger than when Phil Mickelson
won the first of his six.
What is success? Has he achieved
it? Is he still chasing it with the same
ardour, and ability? Knowing that
McIlroy has wrestled with these
questions himself is part of what
makes him so interesting.
There are those who will ask why
we are still focusing on McIlroy given
other golfers have surged past him,
but there remains a fascination with
this open book of talent and
vulnerabilities.
He can hardly be written off when
he has won almost everything else
these past seven years and remains in
the world’s top ten.
The career grand slam has been
achieved by only five golfers. As
McIlroy heads to his 14th Masters inpursuit of the missing part, some of
those who know him well discuss the
McIlroy conundrum.On the No Laying Up podcast
recorded at the end of last year,
McIlroy talked of “cementing my
legacy”. That can only mean wins in
majors. McIlroy said himself that
tied-sixth means little these days;
certainly not in terms of money. His
wealth grows daily, whether or not he
is contending in big tournaments.
McIlroy has made almost $60 million
(£46 million) in prize money on the
PGA Tour. Endorsements, including a
$100 million ten-year deal with
TaylorMade, have yielded more than
double that. And yet those numbers
only hint at his wealth.
It was in 2019 that McIlroy founded
Symphony Ventures — effectively the
investment arm and venture capital
operation of Rory McIlroy Inc.
“Rory hasn’t just set up the family
for life, he’s set up the next five
generations of McIlroys,” one golf
source says. “He’s put himself in the
Tiger league of riches.”
Woods is worth about $900 million
according to Forbes, which is a heck
of a benchmark of wealth.
You can ask why McIlroy needs any
more cash when he is already
fabulously rich, but he thinks it is
smart to make his money work for
him. He has a network of contacts not
only in the game but in big business
— family friends such as Jimmy
Dunne, who is a heavyweight figure
in American investment banking —
and a team of advisers who sieve
opportunities.
Money buys him freedom.
Especially with a young family,
McIlroy wants to remove all
obligations for commercial shoots and
other duties. He talks of running
down his endorsements and having
none at all in five years.
Symphony Ventures, which has
made more than a dozen investments,
including golf companies, insurance
and health care, can make that
possible while still enabling McIlroy
to be a lucrative earner.
A stake in Whoop — a band
tracking health and performance — is
said to have already tripled in value,
with the company now valued at
more than $3 billion. McIlroy has an
investment in Troon, which owns or
leases more than 50 golf courses and
is involved in hundreds more, and in
Puttery, which combines miniature
golf with bars and restaurants.
Of course, what McIlroy would give
for a Green Jacket is inestimable.Put to Bob Rotella, the renowned golf
psychologist, that McIlroy could coast
on all his wealth and this genial
American coach issues a firm
rebuttal. Suggest that McIlroy may be
in too much of a comfort zone as he
sits in Florida with his wife, baby
daughter and his parents living close
by, and Rotella quickly demurs.
“Let’s just say there is no problem
with Rory wanting to win,” Rotella
says. “If someone thinks that because
he is married, or has a child or has
other business interests that’s
interfering with golf, I can tell you he
is getting his golf done.
“He’s putting the time in. He’s
preparing. He wants it as badly as he’s
ever done.”
Rotella has heard the questions
about focus and distractions. When I
was researching, someone who knows
McIlroy well said that he thought one
problem was that the golfer made
himself so accessible — “a people
pleaser,” as he admits himself — that