Resigned Rory McIlroy facing up to bitter reality of modern sport

Hearing what was essentially ‘this is where sport and the world is going. Get on with it’ from someone who had so vocally insisted it didn’t have to go this way was jarring

Wed, 07 Jun, 2023 - 20:07

Joe Callaghan, Toronto

Rory McIlroy was not short of a word or two. To be fair, he rarely is. Searingly honest, open to a fault more than a few times down the years, he can reflect eloquently on the most major of moments with a minimum of prep time.

That’s what’s made him such a forceful advocate, the booming beacon of resistance for the PGA Tour in the golf wars of the past 18 months. And it’s what made his first offerings on the stunning covert peace deal agreed with the Saudis behind his back on Tuesday so widely and hotly anticipated.

In the end McIlroy offered roughly 3600 words in the space of 21 minutes on Wednesday in Toronto. Some of them were clearly going to immediately find their way atop the breaking news stories, the rolling TV tickers, into the Twitter graphics. Take these seven: “I still hate LIV. I hate them.” Or a slightly longer sequence: “It's hard for me not to sit up here and feel somewhat like a sacrificial lamb.” Both were the most common headline-grabbers. But deeper down there was a more poignant, perhaps painful but certainly prophetic offering.

McIlroy had at least twice reflected on Saudi Arabia’s not-so-subtle takeover of global golf while using the phrase “if I remove myself from it…” and followed it up with positive projections about how so much oil money rolling into the game could prove to be beneficial. When pushed as to why he was trying to take his own feelings out of it and whether he in fact still had some discomfort about the cosiness and control of a state with a wretched human rights record, McIlroy’s response told the truest and most telling part of the story.

“I've come to terms with it,” he said, lifting his chin from his palm and shaking his head just a little. “I see what's happened in other sports. I see what's happened in other businesses. And, honestly, I've just resigned myself to the fact that this is, you know, this is what's going to happen. It's very hard to keep up with people that have more money than anyone else…that’s sorta where my head's at.”

Pretty soon his head was back being propped up by his right hand as he stared down the media tent at Oakdale Golf and Country Club and waited for all this to be over. In a way it already was of course. It was over before McIlroy knew it and this was just him publicly coming to terms with it. McIlroy had fought what he (and many others) considered to be the good fight for a year and a half but ended up not so much on the losing side but instead helplessly enveloped by those he had raged against.

One line Stateside on Wednesday morning made the argument that, more than anything, McIlroy had learned that either you sell out or someone else will sell you out and that hit the nail on the head. Perhaps McIlroy had read that opinion in The Ringer himself. Perhaps he didn’t need to. Either way, of all the versions of him we have seen for nearly two decades now, Resigned Rory may well have been the most pitiful.

Hearing what was essentially ‘this is where sport and the world is going. Get on with it’ from someone who had so vocally insisted it didn’t have to go this way was jarring. Yet coming in a week in which the Saudis bought Karim Benzema too it was clarifying.

There were still some last kicks of defiance because that’s the way he’s built. He desperately tried to counter the notion that the agreement brokered by PGA commissioner Jay Monahan and Saudi sovereign investment head Yasir Al-Rumayyan was a merger. He also insisted that this all had nothing to do with LIV as he gently thumped his fist on the table. There may have been technical truths in what he was saying but it reeked of deflation, of desperation too. More telling truths flowed in between times.

"Whether you like it or not, the PIF were going to keep spending the money in golf,” he said. "So if you're thinking about one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world, would you rather have them as a partner or an enemy? At the end of the day, money talks and you would rather have them as a partner.”

McIlroy has been with us for what feels like forever. You check the numbers and see that he’s just turned 34 and shake your own head. There’s potentially and likely still a whole lot more to come from one of the finest athletes Ireland has ever been blessed with. Here in Toronto he is bidding to win a third Canadian Open on the trot and part of you wouldn’t bet against him doing so emphatically, just for the piss and vinegar of it all.

When a Canadian reporter offered to change the subject ever so briefly McIlroy was visibly relieved. Asked about winning again here and using it as a springboard to next week’s US Open after nine years of Major pain, McIlroy reached for an older truth of his game.

“The great thing about golf, and this is hopefully going to be the great thing about golf going forward, is there's always next week,” he said. “There's always next week to right the wrongs from the week before and try to learn from those situations and do better the next time you're out there.”

There’s time for more wailing and gnashing before next week does indeed come. First there’s this week and plenty of business here too. Yet McIlroy has learned plenty already. Try as he might, some wrongs won’t ever be righted. Resigned Rory realises that now.