A game made for the Majors

Rory McIlroy seems to have the perfect game for the world’s biggest tournaments, writes Philip Reid

GERRY McILROY has a photograph of his son, Rory. In it, the boy – all of one year and nine months old and wearing a sweater knitted by his mother, Rosie – is swinging a golf club. Destiny called early to golf’s latest superstar.

A number of years later, Rory McIlroy appeared on the Gerry Kelly Showon Ulster television. In his appearance on TV, the boy – who had recently won the World Under-10 Junior Championship at Doral in Florida – chipped one ball after another into the drum of a washing machine. Even back then, he had star quality.

McIlroy was a wunderkind who turned into a golfing phenomenon in his teenage years. To enable their son pursue a dream, his father worked two jobs – as the caretaker in the local sports club and as barman in Holywood Golf Club – and his mother worked night shifts in a factory. Their son was brought all over Ireland and to the United States to play in amateur championships, which were to provide the grounding for the player he has become.

The evidence of McIlroy’s inexorable rise in golf hangs like a picture essay around the walls of his home club in Holywood, in north Co Down. There are scorecards recording the various course records he achieved at Royal Portrush; a signed replica flag from the British Open at Carnoustie in 2007 when he was leading amateur medallist; a photograph from the 2007 Walker Cup, his last amateur engagement; and a framed photocopy of an old newspaper article relating his achievement in winning the world juniors as a nine-year-old.

McIlroy took his love of golf from his father, a low-figure handicapper who also was introduced to the sport in Holywood. But he is also his own man. Whilst his father has a Manchester City head cover on his driver, the son’s soccer following is for rivals Manchester United.

Before turning professional in 2007 after the Walker Cup, McIlroy had learnt the art of winning: he was 12 when he won the Ulster Boys’ Under-15s championship for the first time (of three) in 2002; and he was 15 when he became the youngest ever winner of the Irish Amateur Close at Westport in 2005 and became the first player since the legendary JB Carr to retain the title when he won at The European Club the following year. He also won the European individual championship in 2006.

McIlroy’s move into the professional ranks after the Walker Cup was utterly seamless. In his second event as a professional, in the Dunhill Links over the Old Course at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, McIlroy finished third and earned enough prize money to win a full PGA European Tour card as an affiliate member. In so doing, he became the youngest and quickest affiliate member to secure his card.

Since then, McIlroy’s game has developed into one seemingly made for the Majors. Although his win rate on tour – just one European Tour success at the Dubai Desert Classic in 2009 and one US Tour win at the Quail Hollow Championship last year – was relatively modest, his performances in the Majors since a third-place finish behind YE Yang at Hazeltine in 2009 have confirmed a big tournament mentality.

But McIlroy also demonstrated an awareness of change when the need arose; he started working with physical trainer Steve McGregor to improve his strength and conditioning; and has worked with putting guru Dave Stockton since his Masters collapse in April.

One constant on the coaching front, however, has been Michael Bannon who first honed that silken smooth swing which unleashes tremendous velocity.