The Times - UK (2022-04-04)

(Antfer) #1
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

j

th
th
h
hi

do
br
Se
he
a

ha
he
fo
pr
in

de
ev
tr
ou
fr
firstforEuro

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?’


60 shots

62

64

66

68

70

72

74

76

78

80

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

1

2

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4
1
2

3

4
1
2

3

4 1

2

3

4

1

23

4
1

2

3

4

1

2

1

2

4
13

2

3

4

1

2

3
4

12

1

2

3

4

12

3

14

2

1

2

3

4

12

1

2

1

4

2

3


1

4

2

3

1

4
2
3 1
4

2
3

1

4

2
3 1

24

3

1

2

4

3

1

2

4
3

1

2

34

1

2

4

3

1

24

3

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
majorjjorjojjjjjjjjors

12

3

4
23
4

1 1

4

2

3

12

4

3

1

4

2
3

2021 Masters Misses
cut at Augusta for
second time as quest
for Green Jacket
continues

1

2

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

0
Free download pdf