NEAT, WELL-ORDERED and smelling of polish, Holywood Golf Club bore no sign of the mayhem of the night before. The lounge floor shone as if drink had never been spilled, furniture had never been dragged or the delirious had never danced upon it. To employ that most hollow of euphemisms, there was no evidence whatever that “drink had been taken”.
Behind the bar where the US Open champion’s father, Gerry, once worked to help finance the young Rory’s promise, glasses were polished and shelves restocked as if it were any other Monday in June.
Only the line of TV satellite trucks parked near the 18th and the milling reporters gave the lie to the ordinariness of the scene.
Young lads who missed school because of the lateness of the final scenes the night before turned up for a few holes and to speculate about the homecoming.
Nobody knew. Not even Stephen Crooks, the club professional and the purveyor of everything from chocolate bars to top-of-the-range drivers at £299 each. Also on sale were McIlroy-style fluffy club covers – only one left.
“It won’t go to his head,” forecast Crooks. “I think his parents have done a very good job. He’s had global success for a few years now and he hasn’t changed one bit. He’s a few more zeros in his bank balance but it won’t change him at all.” It has changed Holywood though.
Americans have turned up in the weeks since the disappointment of the Masters in April, keen to see the club that fosters a talent such as McIlroy’s.
But Holywood, Co Down is no Augusta. Those more used to the pillared portals of the great golfing addresses across the world will find only the warmth of the common touch on the hillsides overlooking Belfast Lough.
The ladies gathered yesterday for their usual Monday nine-hole stroke play event. With an entrance fee of 30p (tea and biscuits included), the top prize is a dizzying £1.
Ordered to sit down and take a note, the ladies offered their take on the events. “I once chased him off the course, you know,” ventured one. “You know the way he’s not very big? Well, I remember chasing him one time because I thought he was only about six and under-age. His bag was bigger than he was.”
They agree that Gerry McIlroy should not chew gum when giving TV interviews. “Looks awful!”
Like the club professional, they’ve no idea when the homecoming will be. Nor are they expecting to be consulted; not that they mind.
“All we want is the 18th flag from the Congressional course,” says one lady. It will make a fitting partner for the 18th flag from Carnoustie in Scotland where McIlroy won the amateur’s medal while a certain Padraig Harrington won the Open.
At nearby Stormont, tributes were flowing for the latest Northern Irish golf champion but that cut little ice with the ladies or their captain Sheila Lavery.
“You’ll get more sense talked here,” she said.