Page 72 - Golf World (February 2020)

the good

guys

asense of

perspective

Rory McIlroy is a guy I’d like to have
dinner with. He’s a lovely person who
is unspoiled by failure or success. A
reluctant superstar. When he came out
with that quote about there being
“more important things in life than
golf,” that caught my interest. I admit
I’d wondered if the money had made
him comfortable, but those quotes
made me wonder again. I went back to
2007 when The Open was at
Carnoustie. In the middle of his
transcript, he said, quote: “I’m a normal
guy. I want to live a normal life. I go to
the cinema. I hang out with my friends.
The second I leave the course I don’t
think about golf. I don’t talk about golf.
My friends will tell you that. I’m a pretty
good golfer. But I want to have a normal
life.” So he hasn’t changed his tune
between then and now, 12 years later.
Today, Rory, pictured with wife Erica, is
exactly the person he was in 2007, and
he’s still saying the same thing.
You cannot separate someone’s
personality away from their talent, any
more than you can separate their eye
colour from their talent. People always
act like grit is something apart from
talent. Talent comes from grit. Grit is
as much a part of your DNA and your
genetic make-up as your build.
So yes, while grit is innate in Ben
Hogan and Gary Player and Tom
Watson, it wasn’t so much in Jack
Nicklaus. Rory is more like Jack.
Maybe he is even more balanced than
Jack. So that means he maybe won’t
win 18 majors. Maybe he’ll win eight.
But I’m betting that golf and all the
stuff you have to do to be great will
never consume Rory’s life to the extent
that he is not present in the lives of
those around him.