Rory McIlroy, Persistence and Dreaming

For Rory, it took things being so over to eventually be so back

I can still vividly picture the first time I ever saw the mop of brown hair under Rory McIlroy’s hat during a Sportscenter highlight package. In a sport that orbited around Tiger Woods, a former child prodigy, McIlroy was cast as the next guy. He turned pro on the European tour at 19 years old and won his first PGA tour event before he was of legal drinking age in the united states.

When I was a kid, my golf knowledge was that Woods showing up in a red polo on Sunday afternoon was the equivalent of The Undertaker’s gong hitting on an episode of Friday Night Smackdown. He was a singular, robotic force operating with surgical precision in a march towards Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major titles. There was Woods pursuing Navy SEAL training to turn his body into a golf ball killing weapon and an air of inevitability to his game.

For much of my young life, sports talking head shows treated Woods’ pursuit of Nicklaus as academic. It wasn’t if Woods would conquer Nicklaus, it was by how many. With no true contemporary rival, Woods could only be compared against the sport’s all time greats.

That was the allure of McIlroy’s foray into the tour at such a young age. Sure, Woods was sitting at 14 majors when the Irishman joined the PGA tour as a professional, but this debut was amidst the arrival of saviors like LeBron James and Sidney Crosby debuting in both the NBA and NHL. McIlroy was cast in that vein, the next great phenom.

Both Woods and McIlroy occupy similar spaces in the hearts and minds of people in my age range. Much of the discourse leading up to the Masters this weekend between my friends and I was centered around “hoping Rory could find a way,” very similarly to how we talked about Woods during the latter half of the 2010s. This was a callback, and a flashback to a moment in time that we all sorely miss.

On Sunday, McIlroy’s once boyish face was accented by grey in his hair and sunspots across his face. This was a moment in time for a tour member, that by all accounts is one of the best players of his era and an all-time great. Weirdly, McIlroy gets a lot of flack as the former next guy when it comes to unpacking his legacy.

There’s some disappointment that in coming to prominence in the second decade of Woods’ unprecedented dominance that McIlroy never reached those heights, which I feel misses the point entirely. This gets to the root of most modern sports discourse and why I feel so much of the foundational principles of the sports conversation are skewed towards binary outcomes.

By all accounts, McIlroy becoming just the sixth man to ever win a career grand slam in capturing an ever elusive Masters Championship to go with his three career FedEx cup championships should solidify and end all debate. McIlroy’s resume speaks for itself at this point and represented a call back to something that sports rarely can inspire anymore, romanticizing the journey.

Last week, I wrote about Alex Ovechkin conquering Wayne Gretzky’s all time goal scoring record as a testament to persistence and greatness. It took Ovechkin a while to win a Stanley Cup, but otherwise, he’s largely avoided pitfalls along the way to the top of the goal scoring mountain. The pursuit was linear and a metronome of hockey greatness.

For McIlroy, his pursuit of a career grand slam was littered with near misses and outright meltdowns. Hell, for a good chunk of the back nine on Sunday, it felt like McIlory was writing simply the latest chapter in his tortured personal history. When McIlroy double bogeyed on 13, it felt like the moment had passed just that quick.

With Justin Rose surging and McIlory wilting, it felt like the die was being cast. Even after bogeying on 11 and 14, and double bogeying 13, McIlroy still had a chance to take home his first career green jakcket.

As McIlory walked towards the green, CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz was in full-Nantz mode. The broadcaster waxed poetically about the sacrifices McIlroy’s parents had made when he was a child in pursuit of his golf dreams. It felt like an all-time broadcasting mush, then as McIlory lined up for a put to win the tournament, this graphic flashed in the top right corner.

Any sports fan lives in fear of mushing a moment. Dubbed after Eddie Mush from “A Bronx Tale,” a degenerate gambler who always lost because “everything he touched went to mush,” I felt a wave of fear sweep over me. McIlroy missed the putt and had to settle for a bogey to set up a playoff against the aforementioned, surging Rose.

Rose had spent much of the previous half hour taking practice shots as McIlroy danced with his demons down the back nine. The beautiful part of sports is the opportunity before competitors to materially change their circumstances in a hands on, direct manner. There’s no faking the experience enveloping an athlete in the fire of competition. You learn a lot about a competitor when they’re faced with genuine adversity, how they respond often defines their character.

So often there’s an equivalence between losing and a moral failing. That if someone lost, they had to have done something wrong, which saps agency from their competitors. Sometimes an athlete will compete there very best and there is nothing more they’re physically capable of doing. For McIlroy, if Sunday ended one stroke short with Rose as the winner, it would’ve been a referendum on his character. He would’ve been cast as an all time choker for blowing the greatest opportunity of his career.

So much of my emotional stake in McIlory’s pursuit of his first Master’s Championship was rooted in my own professional struggles. The stories, the narratives in sports that move me now are ones of grappling with uncertainty and overcoming the odds. If McIlroy can overcome his demons and complete the career grand slam, what excuse do I have to not keep pursuing my goals?

McIlroy is a few years older than I am, but I’ve largely felt he was my age group’s representation on the tour. To see a golfer who’s endured the professional challenges that McIlory has manage to climb that mountain top another time can’t help but bring out an inner romantic. McIlroy’s win was reminiscent of Woods taming Augusta National back in 2019 after several years of failing to seriously contend late into the weekend.

Both Woods’ win in 2019 and McIlroy’s this past weekend felt bigger than golf. It captured the energy of generations that are increasingly pushing towards life milestones like marriage and parenthood. It’s pretty hard to feel life’s magic in the day to day grind, Sunday was a moment of sports fairy tale.

I’ll always love sports for moments like Sunday’s back nine. McIlroy experienced the full scope of his professional career. Brilliant physical talent, agonizing mistakes and the resilience to persevere in spite of it all. So much of McIlroy’s story is rooted in pursuit of a life long dream that started in Northern Ireland with both of his parents working multiple jobs to pay for his development.

Now, at 35 years old, McIlory has reached the summit of the profession. Just six men ever: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan Gary Player, Nicklaus, Woods and now McIlory have won the career grand slam. McIlroy is the first European born player to reach the milestone. There’s no question as to whether or not he’s lived up to the hype.

The pursuit of greatness in the sports world is often linear, a series of setbacks that calcifies wounds and reveals character. To watch McIlroy lineup the five foot putt to seal the win, launch his putter and fall to his knees in emotion was a moving moment I’ll remember the rest of my life.

So often professional athletes are coached to play things nonchalant, to act like you’ve been there before. McIlroy embracing his emotions and showing vulnerability was a moving reminder that part of pursuing the dream are the trials and tribulations along the way.

Against the backdrop of a world where pursuit of dreams is increasingly viewed as folly, McIlroy’s win was a reminder that there is still room for dreamers in the world. It was just a little bit more fuel for those of us who haven’t rendered themselves passengers to life. It’s not going to be easy, there’s a good chance it might not even end up paying off, but life is about enjoying the journey.

Spending time waiting for milestones and moments saps the life out of living, and Sunday was the most alive I’ve felt in a long time. Knowing McIlroy’s journey, the winding road to get to a moment he maybe thought would prove ever elusive, that’s why sports are the best.

McIlroy picked up a golf club for the first time as a three year old, he reached the apex of his sport 32 years later. Hundreds of thousands of swings got McIlroy five feet away from a life long dream that almost everyone who’s ever picked up a golf club in their life had dreamt of. But because McIlroy'd been on that winding journey, he was prepared to seize the moment.

I have no shame in writing that even as an adult, I still find inspiration in watching someone like McIlroy overcoming adversity and trying to apply that to my own life. If McIlory can reach his life long dream after 32 years of working at it, I still have time to figure it out. As people get older, it’s always “you gotta start being realistic,” and “it’s time for you to get serious,” but moments like Sunday, that’s a win for the dreamers.