McIlroy pitch perfect as personality award caps year his dreams came true
Rory McIlroy receives the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2025 award. Picture date: Thursday December 18, 2025.
A full-throated “Rory roar” reverberated around MediaCity in Salford as Rory McIlroy became the first golfer in 36 years to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award – and tie a bow on a year for the ages.
It was a fitting reward for the 36-year-old, who completed a career grand slam at the Masters in April and then led Europe to a thrilling Ryder Cup victory in New York, in the teeth of unrelenting hostility from American fans. For good measure, he also won the European Order of Merit too.
“2025 has been the year that I made my dreams come true, from Augusta to the Ryder Cup and everywhere else in between,” McIlroy said. “It has really been the year that dreams are made of. Thank you for voting for me as your sports personality of the year.”
The England rugby star Ellie Kildunne was a surprise second, a just reward for her totemic role in the Red Roses’ Women’s Rugby World Cup victory, while the Formula One world champion, Lando Norris, was third.
There was more success for golf as Europe’s Ryder Cup players were named team of the year, after surviving a thriller at Bethpage Black in September. But this was McIlroy’s night as he became only the third golfer, after Dai Rees in 1957 and Nick Faldo in 1989, to claim the award.
The Northern Irishman had made the podium twice before in 2014 and 2023, and had admitted recently that if he did not win this year he was never going to win it. This time, though, nothing could stop him.
It was his Masters triumph, most of all, that sealed the deal. McIlroy had not claimed a major in 11 years and had repeatedly tried and failed to become only the sixth man in history to win the career grand slam. But roared on by an army of supporters at Augusta, he finally joined Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen in the pantheon.
“I didn’t make it easy on myself,” McIlroy admitted. “When you want something so much, the obstacle becomes yourself. I’ve had my chances at Augusta, I’ve been trying for 15 years, and the heartbreaks, the way it finished, made it even sweeter.
“My family, my mum and dad, have sacrificed so much for me. I obviously wouldn’t be here without them. So if you’re watching, thank you. My wife, Erica, my daughter, Poppy, they are what holds me together. They are my rock.”
For the first time in the show’s 71-year history, viewers were told 25 minutes before the end who was in the top three in the voting, and there were gasps as Kildunne was announced first, followed by McIlroy and Norris. It meant that the darts world champion, Luke Littler, along with the Lionesses Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton, were out.
The joint inclusion of Kelly and Hampton on the six-strong shortlist surely split the women’s football vote. However, the England team were rewarded for their Women’s Euros triumph in the summer as their manager, Sarina Wiegman, was named coach of the year for the second time.
There was also more repeat success for the Swedish pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, who was voted the world sports star of the year for the second year in succession, after breaking three world records and winning the world championships.
Elsewhere, the young sports personality of the year was awarded to the 19-year-old Michelle Agyemang, who made a huge impact off the bench as the Lionesses won in Switzerland, while the former Arsenal and France striker Thierry Henry was given the lifetime achievement award by his four children.
But the night’s most powerful moment came when two of the fathers whose daughters were killed in a dance class in Southport were given the Helen Rollason award for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, died at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in July 2024.
Elsie’s dad, David, and Alice’s father, Sergio, ran this year’s London Marathon to establish lasting legacies in their daughters’ names through three projects in their honour.
“I’m just a dad keeping a promise to a little girl,” David told the audience. “Elsie wanted me to run the London Marathon and I did. It gave me a massive focus on the hardest times I have ever been through.” Sergio then dedicated the award to his wife and “my princess Alice – keep dancing and spreading magic”.
It was a moment that moved everyone in attendance – including McIlroy. “Being a father of a little girl, seeing the two gentlemen up there, they are heroes,” he told the audience. “It makes the good moments even more special.”
Like the rest of his 2025, whether on the fairways or on the podium, McIlroy’s words were pitch perfect.
Guardian.
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