TWO REMARKABLE THINGS happened this week. First up, an Irishman became the No1 golfer in the world. Next up, no one seemed to care.
If Rory McIlroy was American you’d get it. Aside from their global dominance in so many international sports, the US have also been golf’s standard-bearers for the guts of a century, winning 273 of the game’s 450 majors.
But McIlroy isn’t American. When he competes at this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, he’ll do so under an Irish flag, the same flag that has been raised just 31 times in Olympic history.
We haven’t even mentioned the fact the tricolour has yet to be seen at the semi-finals of either the rugby or football World Cups. Nor have we revisited how rarely it was seen on the world’s leading golf courses for over three decades.
Instead we have been spoiled by the success of the last 13 years, first by Pádraig Harrington’s hat-trick of majors and then by the procession of champions who followed his path: McIlroy, Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and most recently, Shane Lowry.
Anyone under 40 would be forgiven for thinking this was the norm. Well, we’ve news for you. It’s not. Prior to Harrington’s breakthrough at Carnoustie in 2007, only one Irish golfer had ever won a major.
Worse again, there were decades when no one came close — Christy O’Connor Jr the only Irishman to hold an outright lead at the end of any major round between 1964 and 1997.
Contrast those impoverished decades with McIlroy’s career. In the game’s long history, just five Europeans have won more majors than him, only one of whom is still alive.
And here’s something else to consider. On top of McIlroy’s four majors, he has another eight top-five finishes on his resume.
“I think Rory’s massively undervalued especially by fans of Irish golf,” says Paul Dunne, the Wicklow professional who led the 2015 Open after three rounds. “I can’t really put my finger on why that is but perhaps some of it comes down to the fact Padraig (Harrington) was built up by the media to be someone who just practiced his way to the top whereas Rory was built up as the natural phenomenon.
“I’d say it was harder (for fans) to relate to him because a natural phenomenon is meant to win all the time and when he doesn’t, people wonder if there is something wrong with him. The reality is that golf isn’t that simple. The sport has serious depth.”
The last six years back up Dunne’s assertion. When the Tiger Woods era was (prematurely) pronounced dead in 2014, golf had a vacancy, and a freckled Irishman with God-given gifts was asked to fill it.
He didn’t. Instead, a new Big Three was announced, and when Jordan Spieth and Jason Day endured slumps of their own, a Big Seven became a truer reality. Since 2014, Dustin Johnson has been reborn; Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler have been knocking repeatedly on the door, while Brooks Koepka simply skipped the queue and kicked that door down.
“Rory was kind of (burdened) with this idea he was the next thing after Tiger and they are impossible shoes to fill,” Dunne says. “When you are that much of a superstar, people build you up and then drag you down. In golf, it’s just so hard to win, no matter how good you are.”
Yet the irony is that McIlroy has been winning – claiming 14 titles on the European and PGA tours since his last major in 2014. To put that in context, Lowry has six tournament wins in his career, Dunne two.
The sport’s assessors aren’t interested in context, however. After all, no player possesses more natural talent and while he has been failing to add to his tally of majors, lesser mortals like Spieth and Koepka have gobbled up seven between them.
I’ve been out here for, what, five years,” Koepka said last November. “Rory hasn’t won a major since I’ve been on the PGA Tour. So I just don’t view it as a rivalry.”
Now that McIlroy has overtaken him at the top of the world rankings, perhaps he should. Yes, Koepka is accurate in his assessment that since the Ulsterman won the US PGA at Valhalla, he hasn’t finished first in a major but only one other player, Dustin Johnson, has managed as many top 10 postings in the same time frame.
At various stages Rose and Fowler have been lauded, yet they too have not won a major since 2014 (or ever in Fowler’s case). Consider too that McIlroy recorded 14 top 10s in 19 PGA events last year, has finished first and third in his two outings this year, and it makes you think that Koepka perhaps should show a little more respect.
Closer to home, perhaps we too should cut the guy some slack. He may not have Lowry’s every-man appeal, may not wrap himself in an Irish flag but there is a reason why so many Ulster people don’t.
For thousands of McIlroy’s generation, a flag of indifference hangs outside the homes of those beat down by sectarianism and anger. That McIlroy grew up in Holywood, a place where the local GAA club is a neighbour of a British Army barracks and Royal Navy centre, must have shaped the person he became. Would Irish people view him more kindly if he waved a tricolour after Ryder Cup or major wins? Would the scrutiny be less intense, if like Lowry, his father was an All-Ireland winner?
It is likely it would.
Yet the issues McIlroy has to contend with don’t start or finish with the colour of a flag.
Instead, we recall a comment he made at the 2016 Irish Excellence in Sport awards, eight little words that explain what it’s like to be both world class and underappreciated. “People are judging me on my past success,” he said.
Imagine what that’s like, to become No1 in the world again, but know that few really value that achievement, because it is dwarfed by what you did as a younger man.
That’s Rory McIlroy’s problem. Being constantly compared to Tiger Woods is one thing. But being judged against Rory McIlroy is a hell of a lot worse.
