How this tennis legend inspired Rory McIlroy to make major change
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Rory McIlroy revealed how some advice from a fellow sporting superstar changed his outlook on his golf.
Ahead of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, Rory McIlroy revealed the surprise inspiration behind his decision to try something new this year.
The Northern has been a mainstay at the top of the men’s game for what feels like forever and has achieved just about everything there is to achieve in professional golf.
He ticked off the last major box to become just the sixth man in history to complete the career Grand Slam when he won The Masters in April. He has an Open, a US Open and two PGA Championship titles to go with his green jacket for good measure.
The 36-year-old is also a two-time Players champion, a three-time FedEx Cup champion, has won the season-long race on the DP World Tour six times, and has been on five winning Ryder Cup teams.
Having turned pro in 2007, it’s no surprise McIlroy fancied mixing it up a little, and he has committed to teeing it up in the DP World India Championship in October.
“I want to go and play in different places in the world and experience things that I haven’t experienced before,” McIlroy told the media at Wentworth. “Twenty years into a career, or 18 years, to be able to do things for the first time, so go to India and play for the first time or whatever that may be, that excites me.
“Going back to the – I don’t want to name a tournament, but you’re going back to the same place, the same thing 15, 20 years in a row, it can get a little bit monotonous and a little bit tedious.”
As for who inspired this change of approach, McIlroy added: “I had a chat with Roger Federer a few years ago sort of at the end of his career and he was saying he wanted to go and play a lot of the places he could never play in his career. So some of the smaller [ATP] 250 events just because not a lot of people had never seen him play tennis before.
“I think as time goes on and I get to this stage of my career, I get excited about doing that sort of thing.”
Before all that, though, McIlroy is eager to claim a second title at the DP World Tour’s flagship event. Having travelled over from Northern Ireland as a boy for the World Match Play in the late 1990s into the early 2000s, Wentworth holds a special place in McIlroy’s heart.
“I came and watched The World Match Play here in 1999, 2000, 2001,” he continued. “It was always during sort of half-term, October. My mum and dad would bring me over and I would run around this golf course twice. I would run 36 holes and watch the matches.
“I remember Sam Torrance throwing me his golf ball. I remember Mark O’Meara throwing me his golf ball – things like that. I think that’s why I have such an affinity for this place is because I had that experience as a child, and I’ve got great memories from here.”
From the inspired to the inspiring, McIlroy has become one of the sport’s most recognizable figures. And he sparked incredible scenes on Sunday in winning the Irish Open in front of his adoring home fans.
Videos of kids and adults alike celebrating and lapping up McIlroy-mania were all over social media, something the man himself admits is one of the most rewarding aspects of what he does.
“[Last week] I threw that little girl a ball. It’s not like it’s some great gesture. I’m handing a kid a ball, but what it can do for them, and if that makes them a fan of golf for life or makes them want to get into it or play it more, that’s a really cool thing.”
McIlroy was also asked about what the future holds and whether he considers himself to be on the “back nine” of his career. It is something he has touched on previously over the last few years, and while he still feels like he has plenty left in the tank at 36, he knows that time waits for no man.
“I don’t want to be grinding out here at 50 years of age,” he said. “I’ll turn up and play the majors and have a nice time but you know, whenever I’m done, I’m done. That’s certainly not right now, but I’m certainly closer to that point now than I was in 2007 when I turned pro.
“Again, at this point I want to play golf when I want to play golf. I want to play in the locations that I love to go to, and I want to play the majors and the Ryder Cup. That’s it.
“I’m not going to be going by minimums or anything else. Like I’ll obviously do my bit to make sure I keep my membership and all that on certain tours, but I’m going to play where I want to play.”
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Rory McIlroy revealed how some advice from a fellow sporting superstar changed his outlook on his golf.
