Colin Sheridan: Rory McIlroy's long Good Friday
MISERY AT THE MASTERS: Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, reacts to his shot on the first hole. Pic: AP Photo/Matt Slocum
When Roman generals returned to the glory of Rome after triumphant campaigns in Gaul and Germania, they were met by tens of thousands of grateful citizens throwing rose petals at their feet.
As they took the procession, the generals had a slave at their side whose only job was to whisper “Memento mori" in their ear - “remember death” - an antidote to the folly of hubris, a poignant reminder that we are all mortal, and, ultimately, everything ends.
On Friday, as the azaleas began to sway in the angry Georgian wind, Rory McIlroy did not need anybody whispering in his ear as there were forty thousand patrons screaming a wolf whistle only he could hear; Memento Mori, Rory, Memento Mori.
Sometimes the great ones make it all too easy for us to pick them apart. Last Sunday - Palm Sunday - McIlroy rode into Augusta - the Jerusalum of golf - not on the back of a donkey, but in a chauffeur driven escalade. That the patrons were not lining Magnolia Lane waving palms in homage should not detract from the consensus that the Hollywood man has become a messianic figure in a sport that has faced an existential crisis since the emergence of LIV.
Emboldened by the challenge, McIlroy has metaphorically cured the sick and turned water into wine on the PGA tour, usually as the light fades on Sunday evenings. He’s also given his own take on the Sermon on the Mount in countless press conferences and podcasts.
To his many admirers, his assumption of leadership has seen the boy-genius become a man, and has earned him an aura of infallibility no number of major titles ever could. To Greg Norman, the Pontius Pilate in all of this, McIlroy is nothing but a sanctimonious pup. Fitting then, just as he was feted as its saviour from Sunday to Thursday, McIlroy was crucified by the weight of Golf's expectation of him on Friday.
“We adore You, Rory, and we praise you”. McIlroy enters Augusta as the bookies favourite, a tag justified by form, but not by history. It's been eleven years since Rory was condemned to fail by the curse of an epic Augusta collapse from which he has never truly healed.
The maturation of Rory McIlroy has been one of sports great character arcs. As Tiger’s heir apparent, he was often petulant and reactive, his on-course demanour at odds with his outrageous talent. Titles and money can often corrupt, in McIlroy's case they have given him the body-armor to be himself. LIV was the catalyst for his ascension to the throne as the King of Golf.
Bright and breezy all week, McIlroy carried his burden to the first tee on Thursday with a smile on his face. Five opening round birdies were cancelled out by a double-bogey and three more dropped shots. A day which started with such promise ended with an all-too-familiar shrug of McIlroy's shoulders, which showed the first signs of buckling under the weight of the cross.
On the course, the goodwill toward McIlroy is palpable from both sides of the ropes. Even those he chose to oppose from LIV seem to bear no ill-will toward him, even wish him well. On the course on Friday, his followers want it for him, but a glance at the hill he has to climb has them extending sponges of vinegar.
So began the Long Good Friday. McIlroys hope of mounting a charge lasted approximately a hole and a half. By the time he bogeyed the second- a must-birdie par 5 - doubting Thomas sent out his first “I told you so” text to the rest of the disciples.
That is to say, he met everyone who dared to stay following him as his day unravelled. If not with his hand, he met them with his eyes and undoubtedly felt the pity they reserved just for him.
Standing in the middle of the eleventh fairway, making the cut his only hope, he botches his approach into Raes Creek. Amen corner now is his personal Via Dolorosa.
With no Simon of Cyrene to preserve his dignity, McIlroys back-nine woes see him decloaked. The best golfer in the world, and its anointed saviour, is fully clothed in Nikes finest, but walks naked, the loneliest man in the world.
Standing on the 15th green - the cut still a possibility - McIlroy inexplicably misses a five footer for eagle. He slumps. His disciples wince. It’s much too painful to watch. We know what happens now.
Imagine how he must have felt sitting in the locker room, watching as the pardoned Brooks Koepka - fulfilling the role of a protein-fuelled Barabbas - took his place atop the leaderboard?
Stay down champion, stay down. Just as a single swallow does not a summer make, a bad week will not define him. If his now annual Masters misery has taught us anything, it is that McIlroy's trauma is confined to the course, this course, and not his game generally.
Until next time, he should remind himself that there is an unofficial fifteenth station, that of resurrection. If and when it happens for him in Augusta, there is literally no other worlds for him to conquer. Given his scar tissue, he will need no one to whisper…Memento Mori, Rory, Memento Mori, for he knows it already.
When it comes to March Madness, it’s usually the male athletes that dominate the annual NCAA basketball bonanza.
College hoops means big money in the American sports market, and so for the month of March and the first week of April, student-athletes and their $10million-a-year coaches take advantage of a lull in the sporting calendar - NFL offseason, baseball pre-season and a never-ending NBA season - to encourage everyone to fill in their brackets.
This year, however, as both the mens and womens tournaments approached the clutch, it was Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reece who dominated headlines.
The former entered the national championship game the darling of the obsessive media, the latter exited the same arena as arch villain, or, as Barstool Sports Dave Portney called her on Twitter, a “classless piece of s**t”.
Now, anyone who knows anything about Portney will testify to him being the last person you’d look to for reasoned, intellectual debate, and his reaction to Reece - who flagrantly taunted Clark as the clock wound down on an infamous and unpopular LSU triumph - lit the all-too predictable flames of race tensions in American society once more.
Reece, as combative a player as she is unapologetic a person - is black. Clark - who had taunted opponents all month long - is white. Aside from their on-court shenanigans, there exists no quarrel between the players.
The dichotomy of opinion exists only in the minds of those who judge one player's actions on the basis - even fractionally and/or subconsciously - of the colour of their skin.
The debate raged all week, and was another sad reminder that, far from moving forward, American society seems sadly stuck.
New York Gaelic footballers will not win Sam Maguire in July. No matter, because they won their All-Ireland on Saturday evening in the home of the Manhattan College Jaspers in the Bronx.
Their defeat of a Leitrim team that had just fallen short of winning promotion from Division Four must stand as one of the most significant results in the GAA this century.
To win a game, devoid of any pre-season competition, battling logistical challenges and a talent deficit that would cripple any other county, is nothing but a minor miracle. Other teams will lift trophies this summer, but we’ve already seen this season's Team of the Year.
With the weather delays in Augusta, all eyes were - maybe - on Astana, Kazakhstan on Sunday, as the World Championship game of chess got underway between China’s Ding Liren and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.
The self-imposed absence of the greatest player on the planet, Norwegian Magnus Carlson, casts a long shadow on a match that commands a purse of $2.2million, and attracts a massive audience of online enthusiasts.
The match is the best of 14 games, so you have plenty of time to tune in as you’re folding the laundry.
