McIlroy and Palmer at Bay Hill in 2015.
With similar antipathy towards the threat of LIV, Woods and McIlroy be- came perceived as a tag team, particu- larly after they led the crucial closed meeting in Delaware in August 2022 that included about a dozen top play- ers. Woods and McIlroy also became business partners in Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL), the virtual, under-a- dome competition set to launch in January 2025. Though McIlroy finished ahead of Woods in the PGA Tour’s 2023 Player Impact Programme – which measures media interest – after Woods was first the previous two years, McIlroy invariably defers to Woods. “It’s pretty apparent that whenever we all get in the room, there’s an alpha in there, and it’s not me,” McIlroy says. “He is the hero that we’ve all looked up to. His voice carries further than anyone else’s in the game of golf.” Growing up just outside of Belfast, McIlroy knew every detail of Woods’ rocketing accomplishments. After win- ning the Open Championship and PGA Championship in 2014 put him on the Tiger-Jack track of four majors by the age of 25, McIlroy seemed to be channel- ling Tiger, aiming to become insatiable about winning and relentless about his fitness. He proudly spoke of having developed a ruthless streak. But part of him must have known he was attempting to overcompensate for his own nature. “I’ve no real ambi- tion to be the best at anything else,” he confessed in the same Golf Digest inter- view. “If we’re playing a game of cards or a game of pool, whatever it is, I’d hap- pily let someone win just to keep them happy.” He added that as a teenage prodigy, “I felt it was a very selfish thing to be a winner . . . I guess it just took me a while to get comfortable with that, just because of the personality I have. I realised that if I want to succeed in golf, which I do, I need to have it. What helped was realising how people like winners, how people gravitate to them. If other people are happy with me winning, then why can I not be?” This question would not occur to Tiger. Arnie, however, would have understood the softer side. When inter-
viewer Graham Bensinger in 2015 asked Palmer his impressions of McIlroy, his answer – “He’s a nice guy” – included a nod that confidently conveyed ex- pertise on the subject. The comment also brought back how disarmingly nice Palmer could be. Then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem described it well in his eulogy at Palmer’s me- morial service. “Arnold had that other thing,” Finchem said, “the incredible ability to make you feel good – not just about him – but about yourself. He took energy from that and then turned around and gave it right back.” McIlroy felt the chemistry when the two shared a long dinner at the 2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational. The next day, when the tournament host saw McIlroy and casually asked if there was anything he could do for him, Rory executed Finchem’s boomerang per- fectly. “No, Mr Palmer,” he said, “thanks to you I have everything I could ever want in my life.” If McIlroy hasn’t yet attained ev- erything competitively, it could be because he also shares a vulnerability that plagued Palmer. Though he gained fame in his prime for his “charges” – come-from-behind victories fuelled by a joyful confidence and his Army’s frenzy – by 1965 he had fallen into a prolonged slump. “I suddenly got to worrying about disappointing every- one,” Palmer told Golf Digest’s Tom Callahan. “For the first time in my life, I guess I was afraid.” The next year he blew a seven-stroke lead with nine holes to play at Olympic to lose what should have been, at age 36, a redemptive US Open victory. As crushed as Palmer was by the defeat, he still noted in his autobiography that “I really felt worse for my fans.” The desire to please others can di- vert focus and add a layer of pressure to winning. How much of a role that trait has played in McIlroy’s major-less streak since 2014 is up to conjecture, but the questioning deepened with his recent close calls in majors – the 2022 Open at St Andrews where he led by two with eight to play before finishing third, and last year’s US Open at Los Angeles
Arnold Palmer epitomised achievement and philanthropy in golf. “When you’ve reached the top, send the elevator back down for the others” – that’s the essence of the Arnie Award, given an- nually by Golf Digest in recognition of golfers who give back. This is the 12th- consecutive year we’ve celebrated the game’s benevolent spirit, partnering with the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foun- dation and the Monterey Peninsula Foundation. Rory McIlroy, the 2024 Arnie Award winner, was honoured at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a Palmer bronze sculpture created by the renowned artist Zenos Frudakis. Golf Digest donated $100,000 to the two foundations. THE SPIRIT OF ARNOLD PALMER LIVES ON
PAST WINNERS OF THE ARNIE:
Jim Nantz Ryan Palmer
Canelo Alvarez Arnie’s Army Clint Eastwood Niall Horan Juli Inkster Toby Keith Davis Love III Peyton Manning Phil Mickelson
Morgan Pressel Darius Rucker Kelly Slater Brandt Snedeker Jordan Spieth
Clay Walker Steve Young
106 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MARCH/APRIL 2024
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