Prize catch Rory was not poached

THERE was no poaching by Horizon and no enticement on my part.

That was the very clear message from Graeme McDowell at Valderrama last night when the issue of Rory McIlroy’s switch from Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler’s International Sports Management Company (ISM) to Horizon Sports, the Dublin-based company headed by Conor Ridge, was raised with the 2010 US Open champion.

There has been considerable speculation that McDowell, who himself made the switch from ISM to Horizon four years ago, had influenced McIlroy in his decision to travel down the same route. It’s an inference that clearly annoys the 2010 US Open champion and he went to some lengths to rubbish the notion.

“Rory McIlroy certainly doesn’t need me to tell him what to do,” he declared.

“He has a mind of his own. It wasn’t Chubby’s decision for Rory not to play TPC this year, it was Rory’s. We saw a couple of years back when Chubby said Rory wasn’t going to join the PGA Tour and then, next press conference, Rory’s joining the PGA Tour.

“We’ve seen in the past he doesn’t necessarily listen to anyone around him. Rory likes to make his own decisions.”

McDowell didn’t deny his satisfaction at having McIlroy as a stable mate, joking out that Rory’s arrival meant he would now be the number two player in the company!

“We’re very excited at Horizon Sports to have Rory in the camp,” he said.

“He’s one of the most exciting and most marketable players on the planet. I’m hoping he’ll continue to drive me on as maybe I drove him at the US Open. He’s always driven me, playing practice rounds with me and showing me, basically, what he can do with a golf ball because he’s that good.”

While emphasising time and again there had been no enticement whatsoever on his part, McDowell agreed he wasn’t totally unaware there could have been a move in the air.

“Rory told me a couple of months ago that he was a little unhappy with a few things and that he and Chubby had a conversation and were trying to change things,” he said.

“I thought no more of it until I heard changes were maybe in the offing – there’s nothing goes amiss out here without the rumour mill getting hold of it. I spoke to Rory on the phone and we talked about what he wanted to do. I certainly told him to go and weigh up his options.

“There’s no point in me giving Rory the big sell on Horizon Sports. I’m not going to tell a guy like Rory McIlroy how to run his own career. He’s intelligent enough and he’s headstrong enough to make his own decisions. All I can do is tell him what Horizon have done for me. They’ve handled me very well and they’ve grown as a company and learned how to manage a top player.

“I certainly told him to go and weigh his options up with other companies and I certainly was surprised in the end that he made the decision to go with Conor.”

Not surprisingly, all at ISM have been left reeling by McIlroy’s departure. One of their key clients, Lee Westwood, called it “bizarre”. Interestingly, McIlroy and Westwood have been paired together in the Shanghai Masters starting today, a situation that amused McDowell: “It’s great, very ironic. They’ve played plenty of golf together and I know they are both very competitive.

“They’ll want to be out there and beat each other up – obviously from the golfing point of view”, [said with a broad smile!].

On a serious note again, he stressed: “People who accuse me of enticing Rory to come to Horizon Sports would be people who don’t know me very well and they’d be people who don’t know Rory very well.

“Like I said, Rory is an intelligent kid. I’m not going to tell him how to run his career and, if anything, I really stepped away from this scenario. I told him that all I’d ever be for him in this matter was a neutral sounding-board.

“I was never, ever going to try and give him a big sell on Horizon because it wouldn’t be right for me to do that. He’d only end-up resenting me in five to ten years if, perhaps, it didn’t work out for him.

“Obviously, I hope Horizon do a magnificent job and he becomes the best player in the world and a multiple major champion, which I think he will be, with Horizon Sports.

“I’m not going to direct the guy’s career. Those are decisions for him to make. I purposely took a back seat because I didn’t want to be that guy in the middle. I know in my heart that I can look Chubby in the eye and know I’ve done him no wrong. It’s business and Rory has made a business decision. There’s nothing personal.”