After a reset, Rory McIlroy is back on the horse

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

A Wednesday morning Pro-Am in the rolling, fertile fringes of Toronto is a relaxed affair. Here where the urban has mostly given way to the rural, dress codes are loose.
Alas, no one told Rory. Shortly before 8am he stepped on to the first tee of Osprey Valley's North Course with his tailor-made green jacket looking pressed to perfection. It immediately won an admirer.
'I have one of those too,' they said.
'It took me a little longer to get mine.'
Rory meet Rory. The one in the green jacket was two-year-old Rory McNerney, from nearby Collingwood but whose father hails from Meath. The admirer was 34 years his senior yet a few short weeks ago carried all of the toddler's blissful joy and weightless wonder while wearing a slightly larger size of the same garment.
When Rory met Rory: Two year old Rory McNerney showed off his green jacket to the Masters champion, who declared: It took me a bit longer to get mine. Pic: Joe Callaghan
But now? Heavy are the shoulders that wear the green jacket? Not quite. Yet it was striking that Rory McIlroy's reappearance in front of a microphone for the first time in three weeks was peppered with references to 'grinding" and the "need for a reset', of being 'pissed off' and 'annoyed'. Plenty of heft in that kinda talk.
Last month in Charlotte the first major after McIlroy had completed the set and claimed his jacket at Augusta didn't go to plan. We knew as much because we could see it, the world's No.2 fitful and frustrated as he trudged to a tie for 47th at the PGA Championship. But seeing was as far as we got because there was nothing to hear.
McIlroy went silent for four-straight days at Quail Hollow and then took three weeks off tour. That's what made his Wednesday morning stroll around the front nine and then stride to the top table in the media centre appointment viewing.
At one point in his 20-minute press conference, the Irish Examiner asked McIlroy if his decision to give the world the silent treatment was in any way related to how he'd put himself out there so much — he feels too much — during the PGA-LIV Golf saga. His answer was one of the session's shortest but told plenty.
'No, not at all,' he said. 'I've skipped my fair share of media requests over the years, so it was nothing to do with that. It was just…some days you don't feel like talking.'
Some days you don't. Thankfully, Wednesday was not one of those days. Reverting to more typical candour, McIlroy opened up on the most compelling factor behind his PGA Championship silence: the non-conforming driver affair.
The engineering minutiae of how the face of a big stick gets worn down over time and why inspectors decide it's no longer fair and fit for purpose shouldn't be a juicy topic. Yet McIlroy made it one. He was irked, maybe even outraged that on the Friday of the year's second major the story emerged about his driver failing USGA testing when the only player who sits above him in the world rankings suffered an identical fate.
'The driver stuff, I was a little pissed off because I knew that Scottie [Scheffler's] driver had failed on Monday but my name was the one that was leaked,' said McIlroy. 'It was supposed to stay confidential. Two members of the media were the ones that leaked it.
'I didn't want to get up there and say something that I regretted because there's a lot of people [involved]. I'm trying to protect Scottie. I don't want to mention his name. I'm trying to protect TaylorMade. I'm trying to protect the USGA, PGA of America, myself.
"With Scottie's stuff, that's not my information to share. I felt that process is supposed to be kept confidential and it wasn't. That's why I was pretty annoyed.'
Whether his ire was fixed on the leaking of the news by the two journalists or to them was slightly unclear. Which is a somewhat apt postscript. The PGA Championship offered precious little clarity for McIlroy.
'The PGA was a bit of a weird week. I didn't play well,' he admitted. 'I didn't play well the first day, so I wanted to go practice. Second day we finished late. I wanted to go back and see Poppy before she went to bed. The driver news broke. I didn't really want to speak on that.
'Saturday I was supposed to tee off at 8:20 in the morning. I didn't tee off until almost 2:00 in the afternoon, another late finish, was just tired, wanted to go home. Then Sunday, I just wanted to get on the plane and go back to Florida.'
After Florida McIlroy and caddie Harry Diamond went to Bilbao to see Manchester United lose a stinker of a Europa League Final. Not much inspiration there. Here on Wednesday he played the Pro-Am alongside former European Tour chief Keith Pelley, now CEO of a group which owns the NBA's Toronto Raptors, NHL's Maple Leafs and MLS outfit Toronto FC.
On the second tee Pelley presented McIlroy with a personalised Leafs jersey. The team is in a calamitous 48-year title drought. 'If I can win the Masters, then the Leafs can win the Stanley Cup,' insisted McIlroy. The galleries laughed the laugh of people who know tears are more likely.
That Augusta triumph was McIlroy's moment of deliverance, 11 years of soul-shredding hurt healed. Yet the flux that followed has necessitated a rapid restart.
'I don't know if I'm chasing anything," said McIlroy, joined in the field here by Shane Lowry and Seamus Power. "I would certainly say that the last few weeks I've had a couple weeks off, and going and grinding on the range for three or four hours every day is maybe a little tougher than it used to be.
'You have this event in your life that you've worked towards and it happens, sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again. I think the last two weeks have been good for me just as a reset, to figure out where I'm at in my own head, what I want to do, where I want to play.
'It was a good time to reset some goals. I've had a pretty good first half of the season. I want to have a good second half of the season too.'
The RBC Canadian Open has been kind to him. Twice a winner here and adored by locals young and old, he's used Toronto as a springboard to US Open challenges. Next week Oakmont hosts the year's third major.
'I told this story a little bit, but before playing in this event, 2016, 2017, 2018, I missed three cuts in a row at the U.S. Open,' McIlroy said. 'Since playing the Canadian Open the week before, I've had six top 10s in a row.' Onwards and upwards then. No jacket required.