By Brian Keogh, The Irish Golf Desk
In May 2012, Gerry McIlroy penned this piece about his son.
All Rosie and I ever wanted to do was give Rory the best possible chance to do what he loved. There was never any other agenda and I’m sure if you asked Kenny and Marian McDowell, they say the same thing about Graeme. Becoming a golfer wasn’t our dream, it was Rory’s dream. We just did our best of give him everything we could to help him make his dreams come true. It looks as though all the hard work has been worthwhile. But even if Rory had never made it as a professional golfer, we’d still be immensely proud of him, he’s such a good lad.
I played golf because, as a boy, I lived in a council house 200 yards from Holywood Golf Club. I spent all my summers there with my two brothers and my dad. I used to bring Rory to the practice ground when I played plenty.
I’ve got a picture of him hitting a ball when he is one year, nine months old and wearing cords and a sweater knitted by his mother! He loved it from the time he was a toddler. He was holding a golf club before he could walk. He’d be sitting in the pram with a plastic golf club in his hand and Rosie will tell you that we were often woken up by the belt of a little plastic club over the head.
It soon became apparent that Rory had a real talent for the game so I handed him over to Michael Bannon, who was the professional at Holywood, and let him get on with it. We’ve never looked back and Michael’s still with him to this day.
We always been happy to let Rory take responsibility for his own actions. He’s always been a very good lad, never in any trouble. So we have always been happy to give him space and learn things himself and then come to us for advice.
As he got better and better at such a young age we wanted to make sure he got all the opportunities he could to improve his game. We didn’t have much money but we worked as hard as we could so we could say that we gave him the very best chance we could by sending him away to compete in tournaments all over the world from Hawaii to San Diego and Hong Kong.
He just lived at the golf club. You couldn’t get him to come in out of the cold half the time. I couldn’t tell you how many times I had to drag him in off that course when it was lashing rain and his little hands were almost blue from the cold. Even when we got home he’d be chipping balls over the settee or standing the hall and chipping balls through the open door of the washing machine.
Yes, Rosie and I worked hard to give Rory everything we could. But that’s what all parents do. You do everything you can.
