It's Why We Love Rory McIlroy
On Vulnerability, Rory and that freakin' green jacket.
Writing is hard. I don’t mean physically, as I tap away at this keyboard in front of me, but writing is hard.
It forces you to put real thoughts into the world, and to do it well, you have to be vulnerable and honest about what you’re feeling. After you’re done writing, those words will remain forever. It isn’t a thought that will be hard to recollect in 20 minutes, but one that is etched into the page.
That’s…scary. And it’s one of the reasons I went so long without writing consistently.
I wrote all throughout college. Student newspaper golf beat reporter — obviously — turned sports section editor and Butler men’s basketball guru. The next logical step was sports writer, but it didn’t happen like that. Instead, the pandemic happened, I spent a year at home and then managed to begin my career in sports media as a part-time producer at an Indianapolis radio station.
A few weeks ago — right before starting this newsletter — I made the conscious decision to make real progress in my quest to return to the front of the microphone and the keyboard. In other words, I don’t want to be a producer anymore.
The thing no one tells you about sports media is that you have to be willing to be vulnerable when you attach your name to something, anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. From emotional profiles to NBA mock drafts, they all require a fundamental level of vulnerability.
It’s not that I think I’m a bad writer, although I might be rusty at this point, but it challenges who I am. I avoid confrontation and I really want people to like me. Not in a “I need your approval to be happy” kind of way, just in a way that hopes to serve as the antidote to how most people operate these days.
But I was ready to be vulnerable. Ready to start clacking away at these keys.
So, of course, three weeks into this journey, I have Masters Champion and career grand slam achiever Rory McIlroy staring me in the face. It’s time to be vulnerable, just like he has on this decade long quest for the career grand slam. And the 30+ year quest for a green jacket.
It was never going to be easy. McIlroy has been trying to capture the last leg of the career grand slam for 11 years. Furthermore, he’s been catching a glimpse of the demons living in the cabins off the 10th hole at Augusta National Golf Club for 14.
So the 18 holes separating him from golf immortality and the sport’s most exclusive club was never going to be easy.
A double bogey at the opening hole saw his two-shot lead vanish into thin air. 15 minutes later he was trailing Bryson DeChambeau by a shot.
Was it really going to be over that fast?
The answer was no. McIlroy went on to birdie three and four as DeChambeau faltered and was in control of the golf tournament again halfway through the first nine. Birdies on nine and 10 built the lead to four strokes and he had a putt on 11 to secure a five-shot advantage with eight holes to play.
He missed that putt on 11. Four stroke lead. But he played the par 3, 12th perfectly. He played it the way the eventual champion plays it. Middle of the green, two-putt par and a stroll to the isolated 13th tee box.
One of the great things about the Masters and Augusta National is that you can count down the shots that really might derail one’s chances of a green jacket — especially on the second nine. The handful of swings that could make or break a round on their own. Everyone knows they are coming.
the approach shot on 11
the tee shot on 12
the approach shot on 13 (and tee shot, to a certain extent)
the approach into 15
not so much this year because of pin placement, but the tee shot on 16
the tee shot on 18
McIlroy got away with a punch shot from the trees at 11. Didn’t play the hole great, but a bogey up four isn’t exactly the worst thing of all time. A professional par at 12 and a fairway found off the 13th tee.
The list was growing shorter.
He hit a perfect layup on 13 — although we could debate if he should’ve done that in the first place. Up and down for birdie would’ve been relatively straight forward.
But then it all fell apart.
He stood on the 11th tee with a four shot advantage. He stood on the 14th tee trailing Justin Rose by one stroke. That possible birdie on 13 instead the worst wedge shot of the year and a double bogey.
Oh, no. Here we go. Just when we all thought it was over. But like I said, it was never going to be easy.
McIlroy blasted a drive on 15 but one that was a little further left than you want it to be. He proceeded to hit the most ridiculous 7 iron you will ever see to six feet, one that bent from right to left across the Georgia sky with the entire golf world waiting for it to land.
Six feet. Two putts and a birdie for 11-under.
After a par on 16, he hit another approach into 17 that he pleaded to go the entire time it was in the air. And go it did. Three feet this time. He rolled it in and carried a one shot lead into the 72nd hole at the Masters.
But it STILL wasn’t going to be easy.
A bombed drive on 18, exactly where you want to hit it. 120 yards in three shots is all that’s needed. It took him four. Playoff.
15 minutes later, from almost the exact same spot in the 18th fairway, McIlroy hit a dart to three feet and rolled in the birdie putt.
Golf immortality achieved, but it was never going to be easy. Not the 19 holes on Sunday. Not the 14 years since the 2011 meltdown. Not the 11 since his last major championship.
Kyle Porter, who writes a newsletter far better than this one (go subscribe), posed a question on Twitter this week:
“What is it, specifically, about Rory that you love? Or conversely, what is it about Rory that you hate?” Here’s what I said.
In other words, he’s vulnerable and he’s not afraid to show it. The reason it hurts so much when he loses and feels so good when he wins is because we know exactly how much it hurts him. We can see it on his face.
You can see the pain leaving his body, the burden of the last 14 years finally being set free. The one thing I kept coming back to is we’ve never seen that look on Rory’s face. Why? Because there was only one thing that was going to put it there.
That look makes it all make sense.
He once chased distance. Rory, of all people, went after the distance Bryson was forcing the golf world to consider in the early 2020s. This year, he’s preached the game of Scottie Scheffler, the man that has dominated golf for most of the last 36 months.
It even makes previous collapses make sense. The final round of the Open in 2022 where he was about seven collective inches from 6-under, but ended up with a 2-under-par round and it was Cam Smith who walked away with the victory.
2023 at LACC. 2024 at Pinehurst. It wasn’t just the weight of another major championship, but the weight of what he knew would still be in front of him even if he did hoist his fifth major last summer or the one before that.
Even when it was all over, you could still see the transparent emotion. The humanity in this stranger with so many talents that are his alone. In the walk to Butler Cabin. In the green jacket ceremony as he pleaded with his daughter to never give up on her dreams.
Thank you, Rory, for sharing your dream with us, even as it beat you up for all these years.
I’ve spent a long time thinking about what I would say if Rory won a green jacket. Or a major for that matter.
I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading. Thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable.
See you next week.
great writing to match a most memorable Masters