Rory's Glory (3 page)

Rory actually went on to win that inaugural Shanghai Masters event, which was not officially part of the European Tour. It was a new invitation event comprising just 30 players, mainly from Europe and Asia, and four years on it is now the BMW Masters.

After top drawer rounds of 64, 69 and 65 he looked as if he had the massive prize in the bag at -18 under, then almost blew it in the final round with a 72. But it was not over for him yet.

He entered a playoff with American journeyman Anthony Kim. Rory kept his cool to come out on top and collect a whopping cheque for $2 million; the biggest first prize in golf.

Two months after leaving ISM, Rory actually went on to win again in Asia at the HSBC Hong Kong Open, beating Frenchman Gregory Havret by two strokes on -12. At last he had won his second European Tour, following his Dubai Desert Classic win in 2009.

That victory in early December was welcome relief for Rory on several counts. It was a sort of sweet revenge for losing by two shots to another Frenchman, Gregory Bourdy, in 2009 and also losing there in a Play-Off to Lin Wen-tang in 2008.

It also ended a long run of recent near misses. In reality, some of those near misses were spurned chances; Rory let several of those events slip by and he knew it. A fresh Rory, fully focussed on the job at hand, could have won at least one of them comfortably.

A few months earlier, on 7 September, he finished tied third at the Omega Masters after four brilliant rounds of 65, 69, 67 and 68 for a total of -15. But he just lacked that extra bit of ‘oomph', succumbing by five shots to the Dane, Tomas Bjorn, who shot 62.

One week later he really lost it at the KLM Open in Holland with a first round of level par 70 on a fairly easy course. Following that disappointing opening, he finished with a flourish, and rounds of 65, 68 and 67 lifted him to another third place finish with a -10 under total.

At the prestigious Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland on 5 October, he again shot a poor opening round of 70 but followed it with majestic rounds of 67, 66 and 65 to lose by a single shot to fellow Northern Ireland player Michael Hoey.

The runners-up cheque for €392,000 might have been brilliant consolation for some, but not for Rory. On 9 November at the WGC tournament he also finished fourth and on 30 November he finished fourth in the Omega Mission Hills World Cup.

He was showing great consistency, but without an ‘official tour' win, until it finally came in Hong Kong. A magnificent last gasp birdie on the 18
^th
sealed the win for Rory and at the same time lifted him up to world No 2 behind the consistent Luke Donald.

Following this win, Rory's next big moment came in the season-ending Dubai World Championship where he was in with an outside chance of toppling Donald as the new world No 1.

For that to happen, the world No 2 had to win the event, with Donald finishing outside the top nine. But then came drama off the course when he was struck down with a fever – believed to have been caught following his time and travels in Asia.

Test results following his opening 66 showed that his white blood cell count was very low, and he conceded:

The doctor said it could have been ‘dengue fever', food poisoning or a number of different things. My immune system is very low and it's taking my body a bit more time to recover than it usually would.

Dengue fever is transmitted by mosquitos but he was assured that the disease, which kills roughly one in 100 people, was only a mild case. On the course, after finding water on the 18
^th
for his second bogey in a row leaving him seven under and five shots off the lead, he added:

To be honest, I'm ready for the season to be done and I'm really looking forward to putting my clubs away.

It was no surprise in the circumstances that things did not get better for Rory. He ended the event in 11
^th
place behind winner Alvaro Quiros. This meant that Luke Donald was crowned winner of the Money Lists on both sides of the Atlantic and was world No 1.

Rory was actually advised to wait in a Dubai hospital for an extra few days and this gave him time to cancel his schedule for Thailand the following week. The media and tabloids had a field day with stories of Rory on a drip in hospital!

With a Christmas of rest and relaxation with his parents and girlfriend, he would be hoping to return fighting fit, fresh and fully charged. In the meantime Rory paid a very nice compliment to Luke Donald on his amazing year and achievements:

I think this week was one too many. But Luke deserves it. Basically every time he's teed it up he's had a chance or he's finished in the top five or ten. Mentally you have to be so tough to keep grinding out the scores when you need to.

It had been one hell of a ride on the rollercoaster in 2011 of ‘ups and downs' and ‘triumphs and disasters'. But if leaving ISM worked for McDowell – and he obtained a major out of leaving – then Rory was licking his lips in anticipation of the same.

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Things did not get any better for Rory when he returned in January of a new year, 2012.

At the Abu Dhabi championship he was pictured with Tiger Woods before the event, smiling and banging drums with the Sheikhs. But the smiles were wiped out on day two.

In a dream team scenario, he played the first couple of days with Tiger Woods and world No 1 Luke Donald and all seemed to be going well for Rory. He began with a five under 67 but then in the second round a bizarre incident happened.

Now, Luke Campbell Donald had recently become winner of the Money Lists on both sides of the Atlantic. He was also the recipient of great praise from Rory at the end of the season, as both fought hard for world No 1 with no let up from either man.

But their friendship and respect could easily have waned next day. At the ninth hole, Rory's second shot ended up six feet off the green just in front of a bunker. There was a little sand from the bunker on the green in Rory's line so he brushed some of it away.

This constituted a breaking of the rules which Rory really should have known. Donald could not believe what he was witnessing; he went over to have words with Rory, which he explained to the waiting reporters afterwards:

I was walking up to my ball and I saw Rory bending down but I was too late. I tried to stop him before he did it and I said ‘sorry, I don't think you can do that Rory'. I really had to say something but I wish I'd caught it earlier. Rory thought he was not in the wrong at first so I said ‘well, please check and I hope you're right but I think you can only brush loose stuff on the green.'

Tiger Woods was an interested observer as he was the one holding Rory's card in his pocket to mark his scores. The referee intervened and Rory was judged to have broken the rule, for which Tiger then marked him down for a double bogey. Donald added:

A two shot penalty was a bit stiff and maybe one would have been fair. On the next green at the 10
^th
I said sorry to him and I wished I'd caught him earlier but he said not to worry, that it was not my fault. He said it was his mistake for being careless and going brain dead!

That penalty would eventually cost Rory the tournament. He finished the last two days with rounds of 68 and 69 to end 12 under and a shot behind the winner, Robert ‘Rocky' Rock of England.

A fortnight later, Rory finished fifth in the Dubai Desert Classic. He looked on course for his second victory in that tournament, opening up with really impressive rounds of 66 and 65, but blew up with final scores of 72 and 71.

Two weeks later, on 26 February, Rory flew to the Arizona desert for the Accenture World Matchplay championships. He first played the event in 2009 where he lost in the quarter final to Geoff Ogilvy (Ogilvy beat Paul Casey to win his second Matchplay title).

Played at Dove Mountain in Marana, Arizona, it is a course built on mountainous desert with plenty of prickly desert scrub lurking for wayward balls off the tee. But Rory likes the layout and loves matchplay from his days as a boys and youth international.

In the event, he had a couple of real tough encounters before he reached the semi-final. There to meet him in a real ‘gunfight at the O.K. Corral' was one of the ISM gang – Westy!

It was so ironic that these two should meet here after Rory left ISM the previous year. But make no mistake about it, if there was no needle between them after Westwood's irresistible urge to make comments about Rory, then there was certainly a point to prove.

Graeme McDowell's previous tongue-in-cheek comment that they would want ‘to get out there and beat each other up' during a pairing in Shanghai seemed to apply here. Because the truth is, Westwood always felt the need to make comments, which is a no-no.

Prior to the twitter spat, Westwood first riled Rory with his ‘it's only an exhibition' comment a few years previously. This was in reference to Rory's pre-Ryder Cup days when he rather immaturely relegated and ranked the Ryder Cup to ‘exhibition' status.

Rory later came to put on the record his regret for that remark and he now cherishes the Ryder Cup as one of the top events in golf. But Lee Westwood would not let Rory get away with it and similarly, when asked about Rory leaving ISM, he said, ‘it's bizarre'.

Both golfers off-loaded their magazines from the very start. The bullets were flying all over the windy desert and it was clear that each was fully focussed on teaching the other a golf lesson.

Lee Westwood started with a blistering onslaught which Rory had no answer to. He was 3-up through the fourth hole. But Rory composed himself, held his head high and incredibly fought back to lead by the halfway point. He was 1-up through nine holes.

As they came to the 15
^th
Rory was 3-up, but Westwood won the 16
^th
to peg it back to 2-down with just two to play. However, Rory issued the coup-de-grace and won the 17
^th
to win the match 3 and 1 and reach his first World Matchplay final.

It had been a fabulous see-saw battle from both. Inside, McIlroy was no doubt chuffed while Westwood was gutted, and this showed on the 18
^th
. Ryder Cup team mates they may be, but there was no back-slapping, smiles or chat – just a serious handshake and away.

Hunter Mahan of the USA was all that stood between Rory and a first World Matchplay title. It was also the first such final between opponents in their 20s – at the time McIlroy was 22 and Mahan 29.

It could be argued that Mahan had the slightly tougher draw and path to the final. However, he was in a real purple patch and playing some of the best golf of his career. This entire final was typified by what transpired on the very first hole.

Both players missed with their second shot approaches to the green. The American chipped to around 20 feet from the pin but Rory played a superb shot inside Mahan's and to within three feet!

Mahan missed his birdie opportunity and resigned himself to going 1-down after the first hole. Incredibly, McIlroy missed his easy looking birdie putt and they remained all square.

On the par-five third hole both players struck superb third shots to within 10 feet of the hole. Mahan sunk his for birdie and Rory followed him home, so they were still level, then bogeys befell each at the fourth, with Rory finding desert rough and Mahan a bunker.

‘The Hunter Gatherer' then went into a different gear. He played scintillating golf and began his surge with a lovely nine iron to within two feet of the hole on the par-three sixth. He went 1-up and was 4-up through 10 holes.

In truth, Rory made too many silly errors which began on the very first hole and plagued him throughout. But he was not helped by Mahan simply teaching him a lesson on the day, the American maintaining the top form he had shown in the previous few days.

Valiantly as Rory tried – and he cut the deficit to 2-down on the 14
^th
hole after a great pitch to within eight feet – it was Hunter Mahan's day. He let the holes run out until there was no way back for Rory and he triumphed on a 2 and 1 score.

It was Mahan's first victory since his 2010 win at the prestigious Bridgestone Invitational and his fourth in all following previous wins at the Travellers Championship (2007) and Phoenix Open (2010). He lifted the trophy and clutched a cheque for €1,061,000.

A few months later, in April, Mahan would add the Shell Houston Open to his impressive resume (he further added The Barclays in 2014 for No 6). The Houston win lifted him to an all-time high ranking of world No 4 and the highest American in the rankings.

So McIlroy did not lose to any old slouch. Mahan is sheer class. After collecting his own handsome runner-up prize of €644,000, Rory referred to a poor front nine with three bogeys, a double bogey and the missed short putt to win the opening hole. He surmised:

I just left myself too much to do. It wasn't to be but I didn't have my best game with me this week.

Mahan was very magnanimous in victory. He was also extremely honest about his inner deepest feelings as he drove off on the first tee. In the same breath however, he did show great sportsmanship as he offered these words in tribute to Rory:

Deep down I wanted to postpone that crowning of number one player in the world for Rory. He'll get there. He's phenomenal. He's really talented. He'll be number one eventually.

A
fter losing in the final of the World Matchplay to Hunter Mahan, Rory McIlroy was far from downbeat. He took it all on the chin and it was as if the trip to the deserts of Arizona was an excursion and a bonus, away from tournament golf.

Matchplay brings Rory back to his days as an amateur when he played Boys and Youths inter-provincial matches as well as representing Ireland in Internationals. He thrives on it and it is probably a welcome break from constantly trying to shoot low scores.