Rory McIlroy's Nimble Mind Is His Greatest Asset, and Curse
No one would ever accuse Dustin Johnson of being complicated, although there’s half a chance he’s sneakily so.
Tiger Woods spends a fair amount of time playing video games, which, in itself is not a necessarily a bad thing. Unless you’re 46 years old and then, maybe you’d want to think about expanding your intellectual horizons beyond a joystick and “Call of Duty.” He did go to Stanford. For a short while.
Phil Mickelson is intelligent. He’s clever enough, proficient in intermediate math, as in practice round money games, money lines and point spreads. Mickelson once said on “Feherty” on Golf Channel that in order to be successful in golf you have to be “really smart or really dumb.” Does that mean Mickelson is one of golf’s dumbest smart guys? Winged Foot? Billy Walters? Dean Foods? You decide.
But Rory McIlroy is perhaps as complex a creature as anyone who ever hoisted a major championship trophy. He’s immensely talented, seemingly a natural gift bestowed on him at birth. He’s endearing to a fault. He’s thoughtful and realizes there’s an entire world out there beyond the confines of 18 holes and he contemplates his place in it.
He reads books, real books like “The Obstacle Is The Way,” and “Ego Is The Enemy,” both by Ryan Holiday. When his parents asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he said books and a new coffeemaker. At present, he’s reading, “Flow,” a best-seller by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that describes a state of consciousness for optimal experience.
He is trying so hard to be right-sized, which is what anyone should aspire to be. However, such a search could be his curse as a player and, in the end, his fatal flaw.
McIlroy left school at age 18 to turn professional and by his own admission was not a great student. His is the kind of intelligence that avoided being dumbed down with formal higher education. But at age 32, he’s doing things that many young people do 10 years earlier: He’s asking questions.
Like: I have all this fame and money and achievements. Is this what I am and who I am? He found his answers in books and perhaps some of them weren’t the right ones, given his chosen profession.
For instance, he’s read, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F---: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life,” by Mark Manson.
“The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience,” Manson writes. “And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.”
McIlroy interpreted that in relation to golf tournaments, “when you are in contention, not giving a s*** if you win or not.”
Do you think Tiger or Ben Hogan or Jack Nicklaus didn’t care whether they won? That just being in the hunt at the wire was enough? No, that trio hated losing much more than they loved winning. And therein lies the difference between the truly great and those who are left standing at the threshold, unable to cross over.
Even the best players lose inordinately more than they win. And McIlroy, with some of the books he’s reading, seems to be attempting to cushion himself against the losses rather than steel himself for the victories. Losing has to matter just as much as winning. There is no winning without losing. The great ones use losing as fuel, not as a soft landing spot.
The ability for independent thought does not necessarily bestow the gift of mental toughness. Being single-minded helps but it’s not the lone qualifier. It’s neither nature nor nurture exclusively but a blend.
It’s clear that McIlroy, at the moment, lacks the mental toughness required to advance his career in the face of the heightened level of competition that world golf features at the moment. Whether he has what it takes to develop it at this stage of his career is an open question. But he has started to show some emotion.
In the moments following his singles victory over Xander Schauffele at the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits after going 0-3 in the partners matches, McIlroy burst into tears in front of the cameras.
“I’ve never really cried or cared about what I’ve done as an individual; I couldn’t give a [bleep],’’ McIlroy said. “I love being a part of this team. I love my teammates so much and I should have done more for them this week.”
And at the conclusion of his final round after coughing up the lead at the DP World Tour Championship at the end of 2021, McIlroy was photographed after ripping his shirt nearly in half in a fit of rage.
Entering 2022, McIlroy was asked at Abu Dhabi what he would consider a successful season. He said he wanted to get in contention as much as possible. Here’s why:
"That's when you really find out what you're made of and whether you can repeat the swing and hit the shots under pressure when you need to," he said. "And I guess that's a successful year to me. If I get myself in that position a lot of times, and I feel comfortable and I feel like I can hit those shots under the pressure, I know that I'm doing the right things."
At the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic last weekend, McIlroy was tied for the lead coming into the 72nd hole, the par-5 18th, which had water fronting the green. He was 267 yards from the green with his second shot, into the wind with a slight bit of mud on his ball.
Maybe he didn’t lay up because he didn’t trust his wedges nor his ability to make a putt of consequence. He wiped a 3-wood into the water and missed the playoff by one shot. He failed his first test with a big fat “F,” which was probably followed by an F-bomb or several as he stormed off the property.
At present, McIlroy seems to prefer rounded corners to sharp edges. Whether he can win major championships with such a mind is his next big question. In the meantime, he will walk his path and conduct his search with the words engraved on a medallion that I carry in my pocket:
“To Thine Own Self Be True.”