A year of off-the-course turmoil is beginning to spill inside the ropes
Golf is often dramatic but usually with much less drama, honest.
In the early hours of Monday morning back here in North America, Rory McIlroy made a 15-footer for birdie at the 72nd hole at the Dubai Desert Classic to beat Patrick Reed by a single stroke and claim his first Rolex Series win on Europe’s DP World Tour.
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It was a week that had everything: From the pre-tournament snub on the practice green from McIlroy, to the tee flick heard around the world from Reed, to the seemingly inevitable Reed rules controversy, capped off with a season-opening win from the World No. 1.
“I had to work really hard to forget about who was up there and just try to focus on myself,” McIlroy said after the win. “I think mentally today was probably one of the toughest rounds I’ve ever had to play because it would be really easy to let your emotions get in the way. … I feel like I showed a lot of mental strength out there today, and something to really build on for the rest of the year.”
Sports is always wary of bad blood between players or teams spilling off the field or out of the arena. It’s never a good look when disagreements end up in the parking lot or in a courtroom.
In golf, however, it’s the opposite that’s true at the moment. A year of off-the-course turmoil is beginning to spill inside the ropes, with this latest McIlroy victory while most of us slept as perhaps the greatest example of where golf is at the moment. If you had a bout of insomnia last night and turned on the Golf Channel, consider yourself lucky.
After a few quiet months from LIV Golf and its chief rabble rousers, Reed made up for lost time with a master-class in his trademark self-assured obliviousness. In many respects, the 32-year-old American is the perfect frontman for LIV Golf and its players who keep showing up at their old jobs in a fancy new car shocked when their former colleagues won’t welcome them back into the lottery ticket pool.
For Reed this week, it began when he tried to wish McIlroy a Happy New Year and was ignored. Leaving aside the fact that it’s basically February, Reed seemed shocked that the PGA Tour’s most famous frontman wasn’t interested in sharing resolutions with LIV Golf’s most litigious star. So he flicked a tee, reportedly a LIV Golf tee, at that. The travesty.
“I didn’t see, it, no. My back was turned to him,” McIlroy said at the time. “I mean, I got a subpoena on Christmas Eve. … You can’t pretend like nothing’s happening, right. I think that’s the thing. Like why? We are living in reality here.”
It was later clarified that the subpoena issued to McIlroy on Christmas Eve was regarding the LIV Golf antitrust suit against the PGA Tour, not one of Reed’s separate ongoing lawsuits. So there’s that, but McIlroy didn’t seem interested in making the distinction.
“So again, I’m living in reality, I don’t know where he’s living. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t expect a hello or a handshake,” McIlroy said.
It’s no surprise that Reed and some other LIV golfers will use any perceived slights as competitive fuel, because whether they admit it or not, the country club atmosphere we saw during LIV’s inaugural season has a serious chance to erode the edge that got these players to where they are. Luckily for them, between Reed, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, and Ian Poulter, LIV is cornering the market on guys who thrive with a chip on their shoulder.
ALL HAIL THE NEW & IMPROVED RORY
Speaking of playing with an edge, we’ve all seen a different Rory McIlroy over the past year.
It’s no surprise that McIlroy took a lead role in this fight for the future of professional golf, as he’s always been passionate, thoughtful, and articulate about the game that has shaped his life. What has been a surprise though is the positive effect it appears to have had on his golf.
My theory is that Rory has oddly found space and comfort in these increased external pressures. Growing up as a child prodigy, it likely was always about ‘how can I be better than I was yesterday?’ The battle, at the end of the day, always seemed to be against himself. Over the years, he often would say that when he was playing his best he felt there was nobody who could beat him. For the most part, he was right, but this internalization also seemed to have him living too much inside his own head, often at golf’s biggest events.
As his major championship drought became an ongoing thing, McIlroy would show up at majors and give great interviews about the philosophy he was bringing to the tournament that week. It made great fodder for stories, but I began to notice that it seemed to be a different new philosophy at each major. It became obvious that Rory was searching for something, something he couldn’t seem to find.
In a way, by becoming the main character in the war over the future of golf, McIlroy’s path forward appears clearer. Instead of continuing an often perilous lifelong self examination to unlock his true greatness, there is a sense now that he believes he’s playing to protect the future of the game.
That may sound to many of us like a much bigger and more daunting task, but for Rory’s golf game, at this point, staring at opponents has proven to be more fruitful than staring in the mirror.
jmccarthy@postmedia.com