At the time of writing these letters, the last of this edition of the magazine before passing it to the printer, the bearded Rory McIlroy had climbed to the top of the world ranking, a place he had been besieging for weeks. The good and hieratic Luke Donald has not been able to resist the siege of the brave Northern Irish stripling, who is a couple of months away from turning 23 tender springs. Gary Player already said it four years ago: this kid could succeed Tiger himself at the top of world golf. “He has a great team on his side, a huge talent and one of the best swings. If he continues like this, I have no doubt he has the potential to be number one in the world.
The truth is that the guy from Holywood -with only one I, not like his homophone from Los Angeles, you know, the mecca of cinema- has had it coming for a long time. Especially when he took the huge step of entering the Olympus of golf gods, where those who have won a major dwell. Rory became the number one in world golf thanks to his triumph in the Honda Classic of the American Tour, where, by the way, one of his rivals was the once undisputed world number one, the disgraced Tiger Woods.
McIlroy has reached the highest peak in a very short space of time, since he turned professional in 2007, just five years ago. And in his first season, and after having demonstrated his outstanding talent in the amateur field, he showed signs of his good adaptation to his new status by harvesting two top-10 finishes in his first tournaments, including third and fourth places.
In 2008, the year in which he came of age, he recorded half a dozen top-10 finishes, his best position being a second place in the European Masters. His first victory would come in 2009, in the warm latitudes of the Emirates, in the Dubai Desert Classic. That year he finished second three times and third another three times. In total he scored a dozen top-10 finishes. In 2010 he finished nine times in the top ten, his best finish being third three times. Last year things went much better for him and he had a more than outstanding season, with a dozen top-10s, including two victories, one of them at the Grand Slam, the US Open (the other was the Hong Kong Open). Rory saw one of his dreams come true: to enter the club of major winners, and he did it also exhibiting a game that had not been seen for many years in the Grand Slam and which resulted in several records.
SEVE’S RECORD At 22 years and 46 days, he became the youngest U.S. Open winner since the legendary Bobby Jones in 1923 and the youngest on the European Tour since its inception. McIlroy broke Seve Ballesteros’ record, who won the British Open at 22 years and 103 days. Rory came close to matching the all-time major record of 19-under-par set by Woods at the 2000 British Open at St. Andrews. His feat at Congressional Country Club, in Maryland, was seasoned with some heart-stopping records, as he not only won by eight strokes ahead of runner-up, Australian Jason Day, but also won with no less than 16 strokes under par, a tournament record.
Even Tiger himself recognized the great feat of young Rory. “Congratulations and well done. It was an impressive performance – let’s enjoy it,” Woods said. McIlroy achieved his feat at the U.S. Open two months after a collapse so severe that some came to wonder if he could ever recover. On the final day of the Masters he was leading the tournament by four strokes, but, after his 10th tee shot fell near a shack on the outskirts of Augusta National, Rory collapsed, had a round of 80 and fell to 15th place. Luckily, the kid was able to overcome that trauma, and boy, did he. This year Rory is still in top form and, after finishing second in Abu Dhabi, fifth in Dubai and second in the Accenture World Match Play Championship, he has climbed, thanks to his triumph in the Honda Classic, to the top of the world ranking. With only the two official tournaments he has played in the American Tour, the Northern Irishman has increased by 1,876,000 dollars his already bulging current account (he has won 7,185,000 dollars in tournaments of that Tour so far). On the European Tour he has accumulated more than 11,344,000 euros in winnings and leads the Race to Dubai 2012, with 938,000 euros. After his victory in the Honda Classic, the Northern Irishman was fourth in the FedExCup ranking.
SECOND YOUNGEST AFTER TIGER McIlroy, at 22 years and 10 months, has become the second youngest golfer to reach the top of the world ranking, behind Tiger Woods (1997, at 21 years and 24 weeks), and the fourth European in the last year and a half. Rory is the sixteenth golfer to reach the top spot in the history of the world list, a ranking that was created 26 years ago and whose first leader was Bernard Langer. The German held three weeks at the top, until Seve Ballesteros arrived, who would remain, in a first stage, twenty weeks at the top of the ranking. The White Shark, Greg Norman, would snatch the scepter from the Spaniard. Later, Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Nick Price, Vijay Singh, Fred Couples, David Duval, Ernie Els, Tom Lehman, Tiger Woods, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Luke Donald would become number one.
SWEETER MOMENT “I can’t say it was better just because I beat Tiger Woods, although it did make the moment sweeter,” said the Irishman when asked about his triumph in the Honda Classic and his achievement of the world lead. Despite this, he assures not to have any kind of rivalry with Tiger or any other golfer, “just with the course”. “In golf you can have a rival if you want, but at the end of the day your biggest rival is the hole. You have to be able to beat the course more times than it beats you, that’s all you have to try to do,” he explained. Although McIilroy is aware that he can’t forget about the other golfers either, since at the end of the day that’s who he’s up against: “Man, you’re also going to have to beat people on Sundays if you want to win trophies, but whether it’s Tiger Woods, or Phil Mickelson, or Lee Westwood, or whoever, I would never want to say I have a rivalry with any of them.”
The new number one is very clear about his role, and is aware that he can raise rivalries. “I just want to go out there and play solid golf and, if I can do that, then it will be people creating rivalries on their own. Although I don’t see myself as anyone’s rival, I just see myself as Rory McIlroy, who wants to play good golf to win tournaments,” concluded the Irishman. With McIlroy’s climb to the top of world golf, Donald slips back to second place and Lee Westwood, also an Englishman, remains third. The fourth place is occupied by the German Kaymer. The best Spaniard in the ranking is Sergio Garcia, eighteenth, two places behind Tiger. What is clear is that, today, Europeans are dancing with the most beautiful in the world ranking: the top four are citizens of the Old Continent.
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