The Times - UK (2022-04-04)

the times | Monday April 4 2022 57

Sport

McIlroy went on a search for more

speed. He has since admitted that

there was a touch of “ego” in that

pursuit, especially as the one player

whom all the others used to gawp at

on the range whenever he pulled out

his driver.

He took a break from his long-time

coach, Michael Bannon, to work more

closely with Pete Cowen, but his

search for speed and distance

introduced glitches first to his swing

and then to his confidence in 2021.

He became lost in over-thinking,

which, in golf, is always ruinous. By

the time McIlroy reached the Ryder

Cup in late September, his head was a

mess. Padraig Harrington, Europe’s

captain, left him out of a session on

all the chatter was bound

to draw away from the

single-minded pursuit of

victory.

McIlroy is the

chairman of golf’s Player

Advisory Council and,

with that, has a role on

the PGA Tour advisory

board. Already one of

the most high-profile

players, he has become a

spokesman at a critical

time when there are

arguments about Saudi

Arabian breakaways,

and how the game

should adapt.

McIlroy has aired his

own views about fewer

72-hole strokeplay

grinds and more team golf to jazz up

the sport. He was the most outspoken

player about Mickelson’s “naive,

selfish, egotistical, ignorant” support

for Saudi plans. Does a tendency to

say yes to media requests, and to

speak your mind, have a drawback?

One of McIlroy’s charms has

always been his accessibility. When I

interviewed him after his 2011

meltdown at the Masters, he collected

me and The Times photographer

Marc Aspland from Belfast airport,

drove us to his Holywood home and

sat and answered any questions for a

couple of hours with no minders, PRs

or sponsor obligations.

It was the same interviewing him

several years later. In top-level sport,

this is highly unusual.

Do we want that to change? Should

he put blinkers on? “He’s not a horse,”

Rotella adds.

“I have heard people all the time

saying, ‘Rory’s gotta be meaner.

He’s gotta not answer questions.’ But

being himself is being open and

honest. That’s part of being Rory. It

doesn’t put pressure on him or

distract him. Rory’s just gotta be

Rory.”

It is not always easy being yourself.

Elite sport brings so much scrutiny.

To stand still is to be left behind. But,

in 2021, McIlroy lurched in the wrong

direction.

To watch Bryson DeChambeau win

the US Open by six shots at Winged

Foot in September 2020, with his

unfeasibly powerful hitting, was to

feel like the game was changing.

the Saturday morning;

the first time McIlroy

had been omitted since

his debut.

“It wasn’t sitting him

down, it was giving him a

break,” Harrington said.

Seeing McIlroy’s agonies,

he felt he was doing him

a favour.

By the time McIlroy

had lost his third game,

he felt “done with golf”

for the year, but there

proved to be some upside

in hitting rock bottom.

A despairing McIlroy

decided to forget

everything he had been

trying all year and just go

out and play the game in

front of him. He went out

first for Europe on the Sunday and

recorded a 3&2 win over Xander

Schauffele.

“You could see he was a man on a

mission,” Harrington says. “He just

wanted the result. It didn’t matter

how. It’s not a situation you can

create. You have to be pushed into it

by circumstances.”

A few weeks later, McIlroy won his

first tournament of the year in Las

Vegas.

“I realised I can do things like

this,” McIlroy said after a victory that

took him back into the world’s top

ten.

Talking about McIlroy, Harrington

made an interesting observation

about the game changing around him

— and alighted on how Woods used

to say that he could win with his B

game at his peak.

“And I often think about this,”

Harrington added. “The minute you

think that way about your B game,

chances are your A game will turn up.

It’s when you need your A game that

it gets hard.”

And is that where McIlroy is at

now? “From 2011 to 2014, Rory

knew he was winning when he was

playing well,” Harrington says.

“Nobody could stay with him. Now

there is the element that even if he

plays well, what about the other

guys?

“There are a lot of other guys now

capable of playing like Rory on their

good days. That makes it harder for

Rory to be himself.”

McIlroy’s PGA Tour earnings

2009 ................................................£509,423

2010 .............................................. £1,584,983

2011 .................................................£1,194,664

2012 ...............................................£5,062,719

2013 .................................................£1,125,366

2013-14........................................£5,093,093

2014-15........................................ £3,203,657

2015-16........................................£4,464,943

2016-17......................................... £1,800,721

2017-18..........................................£3,437,188

2018-19.........................................£6,345,613

2019-20...................................... £3,349,484

2020-21.........................................£3,167,976

2021-22..........................................£1,819,378

Total £42,159,208

McIlroy sinks a putt at Augusta,

where he has yet to play his best

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McIlroysinksaputt at AAugustttaa,

has admitted to over-thinking his game

MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS

he stopped winning majors?

Jordan Spieth’s arrival as the most

exciting new player in golf was

followed by Brooks Koepka

muscling in with four majors in three

years.

These days, Scottie Scheffler, the

world No 1, is only 25, followed by

Jon Rahm, 27, Collin Morikawa, 25,

and Viktor Hovland, 24. In the top

ten, only Dustin Johnson, 37, is

older than McIlroy. He is now the

one trying to keep up and it has to

be his A game to give himself a

chance.

It is not as though McIlroy cannot

compete. Since Valhalla, he has been

world No 1 (most recently in July

2020), won two FedEx Cups and 11

PGA Tour events.

It is in majors, with 13 top-ten

finishes while chasing that elusive

win, in which he seems to hit a

hurdle, a block.

So what is the answer? “He only

has one option — be himself and be

patient,” Harrington says. “It’s not like

he can try any harder. If that was the

secret he would have done that all his

life.”

Harrington says he keeps the faith,

especially that McIlroy will win at

Augusta. “The course isn’t an issue,”

he says. “He’s played well there. Of all

the majors you think he is going to

win, it’s that one, the way he drives

the ball.

“Rory is going to play a lot more

Masters. He has to think not, ‘How do

I win the next one?’ but, ‘Can I win

one of the next ten?’ ”

Ask Harrington if he thinks it has

become too much of a pressure on

McIlroy to complete this career grand

slam and he responds simply: “It’s

fascinating to watch.”

It feels typical of trying to pin down

McIlroy’s prospects that I talked to

Rotella moments after the pair had

finished breakfast together, and the

coach was buzzing about the golfer’s

mindset.

“Since that Saturday night at the

Ryder Cup, when he decided to go

back to seeing shots and hitting shots

and getting rid of the technical stuff, I

have been just trying to keep it

simple,” Rotella said.

“Rory is trying to simplify

everything and he’s done a great job

of that. His mind is nice and clear.

He’s in a great place. He tells me he is

Continued on page 55

“

He has to think not,

‘How do I win the next

one?’ but, ‘Can I win

one of the next ten?’

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McIlroy’s rollercoaster rounds at major tournaments Masters US Open The Open PGA

Winner

10th

20th

30th

40th

50th

60th

Missed cut

No

tournament

2012 PGA wins

second major

2015 Open

2014 Open and PGA ankle injury

Wins first Claret Jug

and second PGA with

back-to-back majors

2019 Open Fails to

make the cut at the

first Open held in

Northern Ireland

for 68 years

4 20015

GA with

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2021 Masters Misses

cut at Augusta for

second time as quest

for Green Jacket

continues

1

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Masters 2016 rnd

three Hits a 77 to fall

out of contention

having been second at

the halfway stage

US Open 2018 Rnd one Misses

the cut after equalling his worst

major round (80), including six

dropped shots over the first

five holes, on day one

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