The complete title of this book is Rory: The Heartache and Triumph of Golf’s Most Human Superstar. For the sake of brevity, I shall refer to it as Rory.
A washing maching is a pivotal image from Rory McIlroy’s presentation to the world at large. Accounts differ, but around the age of 8 or 9, young Rory appeared on The Kelly Show on Irish television. He had honed chipping skills at home by pitching into his family laundry maching, and was asked to replicate the feat on live tv. The lad complied. Years later, he would repeat his method with Jimmy Fallon.
For the most part, McIlroy has avoided the need for a life washing machine, throughout his career as a professional golfer. There have been one or two minor scandals, but the lad from near Belfast has avoided transgression of a major sort. It is McIlroy;s canodr, accessibility, and approachability that have preserved him as a fan and media favorite. For the greater part of his career, he has given as many off-the-cuff responses as Phil Mickelson, yet has avoided the foot-in-mouth disease that plagued the lefthander throughout his own career. McIlroy has presented the opposite control dynamic to Tiger Woods, known for providing pithy, pointed commentary that revealed little and nothing.
Alan Shipnuck has carved a niche as the premier profiler of golf talent of his era. If he has one concern, it is that no current golfer presents a new biographical opportunity beyond Rory. Let’s call it hyperbolic, as Shipnuck says. My money is on his pursuit of a Patrick Reed bio, or an Anthony Kim sketch. Those two would sell plenty of copies, and that’s just on the side of dudes. Charley Hull, the Korda sisters, and many of the ladies merit some presentation as well. We’re here to talk about what Shipnuck uncovered on Rory, though, so back to the present.
Rory was released to booksellers yesterday, on Tuesday, April 7th. The book lasts in the neighborhood of 300 pages, with a sizable Notes section at the end. The book is Shipnuck’s fourth pro profile, following the footsteps of tomes on Rich Beem, Christina Kim, and Phil Mickelson. At a certain point in Rory, the subject of the bio tells the author to take a hike, in much more colorful language. The outburst stuns both Shipnuck and McIlroy’s agent. The message is clear: you (AS) find a way to write about things that people don’t want revealed. As Shipnuck later acknowledges, fame comes at a cost; always has, always will.
Rory maps the lives of the main man himself, and does a fair amount of work on the back stories of his parents and other relatives and adquaintances. With McIlroy midway through his thirties, Shipnuck has deemed that Act Two of Rory’s opus has concluded, and that we are now into Act Three, at least in the pre-senior stage. It’s a proper definition, so what did the author deem worthy of your eyes from Acts One and Two?
That’s the trick of a good book review. My job is not to give away every bit of information, so that you don’t purchase the volume for yourself. Another media copy would never again reach my hands. My job is to read the advance copy as you would, even though it comes with the caveat Uncorrected — Not for sale or quotation, and enjoy it as a fan would. Next, I should find one or two juicy items, but reference them only enough to start the salivary glands on the wet cycle of the washing machine. So, it seems that I had forgotten that Rory had signed a letter of intent to attend and compete for an American university, although the commitment was never fulfilled. That part gets a solid bit of coverage. Rory’s personal life, including the filing and unfiling for divorce in 2024, receives its treatment.
What makes this volume worth your well-earned and well-deserved slush fund, is the focus on Rory in the Ryder Cup and Rory in the LIV Golf nascence. As Tiger’s sufferings have been of his own doing, Rory’s entrance into the maelstrom of the rogue, breakaway golf circuit was not. There was never a moment when Rory McIlroy would have signed with LIV Golf, nor was there a moment when he could have avoided leading the charge against LIV Golf.
Alan Shipnuck finds a large body of storylines on both counts, to weave together. McIlroy has joined eight European Ryder Cup squads, and has a .750 winning record. Six times of eight, his side has triumphed, including last fall at Bethpage Black. Winning at home and away is a feat by which careers are painted or tainted. In McIlroy’s case, it is certainly the former. How he has gone about evolving and growing his role on the European side, is documented within the pages of this volume.
I’ll do a reread soon of Rory . That second time through, as with playing a new golf course, is certain to reveal elements that I missed in the initial daliance. I encourage you to have a flirtation or two with Rory. It is an unquestionable success story, one that has struggles, successes, failures, and glory. What a great, after-work companion for a week or two.
