Rory McIlroy has never been afraid to speak his mind.
That was apparent in a wide-ranging interview in Sunday’s Irish Independent. The four-time major champion sat down with journalist Paul Kimmage at McIlroy’s home in Holywood, Northern Ireland, where “no question was off limits.”
McIlroy opened up about his personal life, detailing his relationship with his wife, Erica, and how it’s virtually impossible to be “anonymous” anymore. He also unpacked on The Open Championship in Northern Ireland at Royal Portrush, what led to his caddie change after the 2017 Open Championship, his new mental approach to golf and blocking out outside opinions.
Here are some highlights, with the full interview here.
The Open at Royal Portrush
McIlroy caught considerable flak for not playing the Irish Open in 2019, instead electing to play the Scottish Open a week later as a tune-up for the Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Before heading to Scotland, McIlroy played a practice round at Portrush with his caddie and longtime friend, Harry Diamond (more on Diamond later), and his coach, Michael Bannon.
“I’d seen pictures of Portrush and how it was looking,” McIlroy said of the round. “My friends had played it and had seen all the infrastructure going up, and the stands on 18, and it was unrecognizable from the Portrush that I grew up playing in the North (North of Ireland Championship). And I thought it was going to be different, but I played that afternoon and felt good. It was still Portrush at the end of the day.”
It wasn’t emotional. There was no reminiscing of past rounds, it was business. The pressure was on for McIlroy that week as the hometown favorite, and he tried to play it down leading up to the event. He was “overwhelmed” by the support that week. Here’s what he had to say:
“Yeah, I’m always nervous, but on the range I felt good, had a good warm-up, then started feeling it on the putting green before going to the first tee. Michael was there. I hit my final putt and shook his hand, ‘See you’. Then you go up and over the bridge, and the way they do it at the Open almost feels like a ring walk for a boxer. People are cheering. You come down the steps and through a tunnel and onto the tee box, and there’s this massive ovation. And I’m like, ‘Woah!’ That was the first time I felt it, ‘Jesus, this is huge!’ And I hadn’t prepared myself for it. I had prepared for the golf, and the golf course, but I hadn’t prepared for that feeling. And I don’t know if I could have prepared for that feeling.
McIlroy said he had felt nerves before, but Portrush was different, because it was home.
“Yeah, home. It comes back to that. There’s a connection there I don’t think you get with anywhere else — even talking about it now I’m getting goose bumps,” he said. “But that was the moment. You walk onto the tee and get this ovation and you’re like, ‘Wow!'”
After a disappointing opening-round 79, McIlroy shot a Friday 65, missing the cut by one stroke.
Only person disappointed at East Lake
McIlroy had a front-row seat for Tiger Woods’ win at the 2018 Tour Championship. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever have the opportunity to be paired with Woods in a final round, and his performance was one to be forgotten. McIlroy wanted Woods to earn his comeback win, he wanted to “take the fight to him.”
“And I never made him earn it. That’s what bothered me,” McIlroy said. “And what bothered me even more was I came away (thinking), ‘I know I can play better than that. I know I can beat him.’ But I’d made it too much about him, and not enough about me.”
But it had to be a great moment, right? Not at all.
“It was terrible. I birdied the last to shoot 4 over!” he said “And I got the bigger picture that it was wonderful for golf, and I’m sure I’ll look back and think ‘That was pretty cool,’ but it hurt. It really hurt. I was probably the only one at East Lake that day that was disappointed.”
Naïve and the gullible
McIlroy used a Malcolm Gladwell book, Talking to Strangers, to describe he and his wife: the naïve and the gullible.
“I’m definitely more on the gullible side, and I wouldn’t say Erica is a cynic but she’s a skeptic. She’s skeptical. But I think we balance each other out,” he said. “She’s very protective of me and sees it from a different angle … she doesn’t want me being taken advantage of, knowing my nature.”
Rory, the competitor vs. Rory, the man
“Yeah. I think if you put me in a setting where I have an outlet to be competitive I want to be the best,” said McIlroy, referencing a recent spin class where he wanted to be the best. “And as time goes on I’m getting more competitive — it would seem the other way, that when you’re older you should mellow out, but I’m getting more competitive for whatever reason that is.”
McIlroy said it can be a struggle to separate his competitive nature at work and who he wants to be as a man, noting sometimes the competitor can spill over.
“I think I’ve always needed this separation between who I am and what I’m like on the golf course, and who I try to be away from the golf course,” explained McIlroy. “Because I know that being that person (the competitor) outside of a golf environment would take up way too much mental energy and I’d basically be a narcissist. I’d be thinking about myself the whole time. And that’s not a great way to go through life.”
His mental approach
“I always knew the mental side was important, but I didn’t have a structure. I had a structure around how I practiced, hitting balls, chipping, putting, I had a structure around going to the gym. I had a routine, things I did, but I didn’t have a structure around the mental side of the game. I was basically leaving it to chance. Some weeks, when I was feeling great — the US Open in ’11, the PGA in ’12, even when I won in ’14 — it worked. And other weeks, it didn’t. And that’s the difference between then and now.”
When did that change take place? After the 2018 Tour Championship. He’s also a fan of guided meditations.
‘A nice balance’
No matter where he goes, McIlroy can’t be “anonymous” anymore. Not at his his home in Florida, and especially not in his hometown of Holywood.
“I’ve never tried to shut myself off from the outside world. I always want to be able to do what I want to do, and I think I’ve been able to find a good balance with that,” said McIlroy. “I’ve seen what Tiger’s life is like. I can be somewhat anonymous in Palm Beach, but you go and meet up with him and it’s just a different level. And I’m not saying I don’t want success because I don’t want that, I just feel I’ve been able to have a nice balance so far.”
From big brother to caddie
After a T-4 finish at the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, McIlroy sacked his caddie J.P. Fitzgerald. While the move was questioned after his top-five finish, McIlroy said he knew before the tournament it would be their last event together.
“I don’t want to throw him under the bus, but there were a few things that happened in ’17 that were just . . . I think both people in a relationship like that can get complacent, and I think there was a bit of complacency, so I decided after the Masters it was probably time. I was getting very hard on him. Really hard. Really angry,” McIlroy explained.
“It was partly to do with him and mostly to do with me. I wasn’t playing the best and was frustrated at myself and taking it out on him … And it’s something I would never do with Harry. Never,” McIlroy added, noting his own stubbornness.
Harry Diamond and McIlroy have been friends since they were children. They met on the putting green at Holywood Golf Club in 1996 when McIlroy was just 7 years old. Diamond was 12.
“Yeah, I was an only child and Harry was a big brother. That’s sort of how it felt growing up — a big brother’s influence on a little brother,” McIlroy said of their relationship. “He was the one that introduced me to alcohol; the one that introduced me to girls.”
McIlroy told stories of caddying for Diamond as a kid, like when he won the Ulster Boys in 2002. Diamond was an accomplished player in his own right, and he’s the perfect balance for McIlroy on the course.
“Harry was my best man. We’re very close,” he said. “I love having him on the bag. I’m a different person.”
‘You can’t tell Rory what to do’
McIlroy has learned to block out all outside opinions. The 18-time winner on the PGA Tour (with 14 wins on the European Tour), doesn’t focus on what anyone else thinks or says. It’s about him.
“I can’t learn from other (opinions),” said McIlroy. “I need to learn from my own voice. It’s about me: ‘You can’t tell Rory what to do.’ I need to work it out myself.”
Before the final round of the Players Championship last year, McIlroy was eating lunch in an area just for the players. Jason Day, Webb Simpson and Tommy Fleetwood were all there, along with four TVs showing the Golf Channel.
“And it’s not even the (live feed), it’s these boys talking about us before (we go out)!,” McIlroy remembered. “I’m like, ‘Boys! What are you doing? This is no good for anyone. Turn it off!’ I certainly didn’t want to see any of it. I was just perplexed as to why they would be watching that particular channel before playing a pretty big final round.”
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