Fame and fortune can be a heavy burden to bear at times. Not that this correspondent would know. “Everybody knows what you do 24 hours a day,” sighed Rory McIlroy as he perched himself in front of the writers and broadcasters for his pre-tournament blether ahead of the BMW PGA Championship here at Wentworth.
All quiet on the West Course front? It never is when Rory is around. Four years ago in this same interview room, McIlroy sheepishly announced that he had called off his wedding to Caroline Wozniacki just as the invitations were getting shoved through a variety of letterboxes. Brave man.
Given the seemingly unquenchable drooth the modern media has for absorbing every cough, wheeze and snort of high-profile public figures, McIlroy’s announcement of this parting of the ways created quite a strooshie.
All of a sudden, seasoned scribblers were piously assuming the role of Relate counsellors, a remarkable development given that a few of them have probably had more dodgy unions than Henry VIII.
Having gone from down on one knee to down in the dumps, it appeared that a victory in that week’s BMW PGA Championship would be out of bounds amid all the hoopla.
But what happened? McIlroy played with the carefree abandon of man that was, well, footloose and fancy free. Seven shots behind the frontrunner, Thomas Bjorn, going into the final round, the Northern Irishman powered to victory with a closing 66.
He would go on to win the Open, the WGC Bridgestone Invitational and the US PGA Championship during a glory-laden summer.
Here in 2018, McIlroy is back at Wentworth. As ever there is great expectation on him and, while he’s obviously delighted that there’s no personal tumult to deal with this time, the 28-year-old concedes he wouldn’t mind adopting the freewheeling approach of 2014. That’s easier said than done, of course.
“I think about that a lot,” he said. “Ideally, you would just go out and play golf and hit shots. You’d love to go out and play with that mind set all the time.
“But that’s not life. As humans, we’re wired to be a bit more careful; stay away from the water, don’t hit it in the bunker, that kind of thing. It’s a constant battle with yourself on the course to try and get away from that and free wheel a bit and be more confident in your decisions.
“But that goes back to if you’re swinging it well. If you’re confident with your swing, you’re going to take on a few more flags and take on a few more risks. Look, I’d love to go out and play that way every single time but I don’t think that’s possible.”
McIlroy admits his swing has been “a little bit out of sync” in the weeks after his Masters disappointment but the four-time major winner believes he has found something again that has given him confidence heading into the European Tour’s flagship event.
Having stepped away from the frontline for three months at the end of 2017 to get back to full fitness after an injury-hindered campaign, McIlroy’s 2018 season has been a tad topsy-turvy.
There was a brace of top-three finishes in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and a victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational but the anti-climax of the Masters, where he slithered out of the running on the final day, and a missed cut in The Players’ Championship have highlighted the inconsistency.
In many ways, McIlroy’s record here at Wentworth mirrors this slightly erratic spell. His eight appearances in this neck of woods have included a win, four missed cuts, a fifth, a 48th and a 24th.
“I guess the good has been very good and the bad has been worse than I would want it to be,” said McIlroy when asked to reflect on the season so far. “It’s been a little more inconsistent that I would want it to be.
“Starting out in the Middle East, the win at Bay Hill and then getting myself into contention at Augusta, they were great weeks. But I just want the weeks when I’m not feeling so good about my game to be better, instead of it being a weekend off.
“I guess all you need is that spark or that catalyst. I felt like my game was trending in the right direction back in 2014, but I didn’t have the win.
“I won and it snowballed from and I got on to a nice hot streak. Maybe this (the BMW PGA) could be the spark that gets that all going again.”
Watch this space.
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