18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
'Churlish' Rory McIlroy next golf star to get book treatment from Alan Shipnuk
Phil Mickelson's biographer Alan Shipnuck is writing a book about Rory highly entertaining 'LIV and Let Die' chronicled the rise of the rebel golf tour, while his Mickelson tome 'Phil' lifted the lid on the divisive six-times major winner's career.
The Californian author is fascinated with the life and times of the sport's newest Grand Slam winner and his book on McIlroy is due on the shelves in March 2026.
"I've spent the last year thinking about Rory McIlroy because he's going to be my next book, and I'm probably 60% done," said the famed American writer. "I have many thoughts about Rory. It's been fascinating to watch this existential crisis he's going through since the Masters and everyone has a theory."
Shipnuck revealed to the Indo Sport podcast that he had tried to involve McIlroy in the process but the 35-year-old didn't want to be interviewed specifically for the book.
"It's going to be fun to read because I'm having fun writing it, that's always my test," he said. "As a writer you have to be your hardest critic but I've had a lot of fun writing it. He's had a big colourful life and has touched a lot of people along the way.
"I said this to Rory, that the last two books I did were big and controversial but I'd like this to be a bit more fun and celebratory because I think there's a lightness to his being. I'm not getting sucked into the recency bias, I'm looking at the whole scale of his career and there's been a lot of joy there. It's going to be an intimate portrait.
"We actually had a conversation in the parking lot in Oakmont on Sunday that was really fascinating. I've got to save it for the book but a lot of things were revealed, I'll say that, and it told me so much about Rory. It was very helpful for the book.
"A huge part of the Rory brand is the down to earth or human superstar - and a lot of us hope he doesn't lose that because then he loses some of his appeal."
After winning at Augusta for the first time in April, thus completing the fabled Grand Slam after a 14-year wait, McIlroy refused to talk to the media during the next major tournament - the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
He did a press conference ahead of the US Open at Oakmont last week but didn't talk again until Saturday, when he was uncharacteristically short with his answers and seemed fed up, although he perked up after his final round 67 as he looked forward to The Open's return to Portrush next month.
"I think there's a few things going on and he talked about it, it's just the let down of chasing this dream," said Shipnuck. "But when Phil won the Masters in 2004 to break through after about a dozen years of being the best player with a major, and all the questions about him, that was as cathartic a win as Rory's was.
"And Phil just kept going, he had his best year that year and came back and won majors the next year and the year after - you don't have to have a huge let down."Rory's an emotional player, just like Phil was, and I think he's just out of emotion. He just looks so flat on and off the golf course. This churlish version of Rory, is this the real Rory and for 18 years it's been this incredible facade and he was so widely admired and so classy and everyone admired him?
"We thought that was the real Rory, but was that all pretend? It makes your head spin thinking about how much he's changed in such a short period of time."
Shipnuck can't wait to see how McIlroy reacts to his Portrush return after the drama of his missed cut there in 2019. "I think Portrush is going to be fascinating, and he alluded to this as he was leaving Oakmont," he said.
"Like, if he can't summon any energy or emotion to play The Open at Portrush, the course where he shot 61 when he was 16 and that really began his legend, and after what happened last time around when he made eight on the first hole and that incredible Friday when the entire island of Ireland was cheering him on to try to make the cut and the tears, if he goes back there and he just doesn't look like he's into it, then you really have to question what is this last act of his career going to look like.
"Clearly it would have been better for Rory if the Masters was on in September and he could have just taken six months off.
"I can't believe he's playing this week (at the Travelers) in Connecticut, why is he doing this to himself? Why is he putting himself through it? It's incredible. He just looks so miserable on the golf course and obviously it's affecting his play.
"Portrush is just going to be fascinating theatre and if he can dig deep and find something if doesn't, I'm definitely concerned for what this means going forward."
Shipnuck claimed that the emotional reaction to McIlroy's Masters triumph was less about the golf played than the appreciation of the Holywood man as a person, and how he has carried the burden of trying to complete the slam.
"He had worn this burden and had let us into his heart and soul. That's why the Masters resonated so much," he stressed. "It's the way Rory has let us in that has made people so invested in his accomplishments - and his failures.
"So it's been interesting to read on social media how people have quickly said, 'I'm kind of over this guy'. Eighteen years of goodwill, a lot of it has been incinerated in two months."He can get it back, of course, but there's been this sense of let down, it's almost taken away from some of the Masters win. The feelings we all had in April, they've been diminished and now there's these weird questions and weird energy.
"It's totally self-induced, it just feels like it's not as much fun as it was. Rory made it fun to be a golf fan and it's less fun right now, and it's not good for anyone."
