Rory McIlroy's former principal says school took 'risk' with absences

BBC News

17-04-2025

A confidential memo from Rory McIlroy's time at school shows how plans were in place in case his golf career did not work out.Sullivan Upper School in Holywood, County Down, went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the golf-mad teenager kept studying.McIlroy, now 35, completed the Grand Slam in golf on Sunday, winning the Masters in dramatic fashion in a play-off at Augusta.Twenty years ago, McIlroy was often on a golf course somewhere in the world when he should have been in the classroom.
'Break a few rules'
His then principal, John Stevenson, told BBC News NI "sometimes you've got to break a few rules".Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, he also talked about what kind of student Rory was.Young McIlroy was driving and putting at times when he should have been studying.Indeed, there was an old joke in his home town when he was growing up - what have Sullivan Upper school and a bunker at Holywood golf club got in common?The answer was - Rory was never in either of them.Back in September 2004, a seven-point plan was agreed with his parents, Gerry and Rosie, as 15-year-old McIlroy prepared to take his GCSEs.It was decided that he should reduce his number of subjects from nine to five.In the memo sent to two Year 12 teachers, Mr Stevenson wrote: "I expect Rory will be away from school rather more than we think wise, but rather less than he would want."It was arranged that teaching staff and class-mates would help him catch up on work that he missed.
Mr Stevenson said at the time they could "look forward in anticipation to his future sporting success and recognise that we will have played some part in that".He was proved right.The McIlroy family home was only a five-minute walk from the school on the Belfast Road in Holywood. It had a small putting green on its front lawn.Holywood Golf Club was less than a mile away but by his mid-teens, McIlroy was playing at home and abroad.
The school memo pointed out he had been selected to play for the European junior Ryder Cup team and had also been invited to take part in a special event in Scotland.Dated 1 September 2004, the memo stated: "Last year he (Rory) enjoyed reasonably successful, if modest, academic progress given the considerable time he was away from classes."Mr Stevenson, who was principal between 1998 and 2010, remembers a meeting he had with McIlroy's father, Gerry."It wasn't unusual for a parent to come to ask to come and see me. What was unusual was that Gerry was asking for Rory to be out of school more often than he was in it," he said.
'Taking a risk'
Mr Stevenson suspected he was dealing with "pushy parents" but soon accepted he was wrong."Gerry convinced that it was not the case, because he said 'it's all him, it's all Rory, and we've just been, through his young life, doing every thing we can to help him with his ambition to be a professional golfer'."I took a decision that if his parents had made these sacrifices and had done all this work on his behalf, that his school needed to do that too."The retired principal said that when families, schools and peer groups work well together "dreams are possible"."We were taking a risk, it could have fallen apart," he admitted.As for the young McIlroy, he remembers him as popular but quite shy.He was single-minded about golf, and it is clear that determination has served him well in the past 20 years.
'Lessons'
Mr Stevenson said: "There's an opportunity to tell kids 'he is your role model'."Not because he is famous, not because he is successful, not because he is rich – he's all of those things – but he's honest, he has acknowledged the support that he got, and he has failed, fallen down and got back up time and time again."Those are the lessons that I want our young kids to learn."The Sullivan school motto is the Irish phrase Lámh Foisdineach An Uachtar, which means with the gentle hand foremost.