The hardened Ryder Cup veteran we will see at Bethpage this week was a little more slipshod in his youth. Particularly at a crucial moment in 2012
Has it really been 13 years since rosy-cheeked Rory McIlroy caused teammates, coaches, and a continent’s worth of fans to hyperventilate by coming within a hairsbreadth of missing his tee time for a crucial singles match?
The scene at the 2012 Ryder Cup, recall, looked like something out of The Blues Brothers, except there weren’t any nuns or Nazis around. Having barreled down Illinois highways at upwards of 100mph, its siren blaring, an unmarked cop car came screeching into the parking lot of the Medinah Golf Club, skirted the camera crews huddled to record McIlroy’s frenzied arrival, and deposited him just steps away from the locker room.
Timothy M Gay, an American writer and historian, is the author Rory Land: The Up-and-Down World of Golf’s Global Icon, now available from Regalo Press/Simon & Schuster-UK.
