I wouldn’t share the course with Trump again, says Mcilroy
Former NI ace Paul Mcveigh on life in the game, and new career as keynote speaker
RORY Mcilroy has said that he “probably wouldn’t” play golf with President Donald Trump again, after he faced criticism for doing so three years ago.
Mcilroy, the current World No.1, was pictured playing golf with the president in Florida in 2017.
The Northern Ireland superstar faced a lot of criticism, including being called a “bigot”, for playing with the president at his golf resort in Florida, but at the time defended his actions in a Twitter post.
“Whether you respect the person who holds that position or not, you respect the office that he holds,” he said.
“Golf was our common ground, nothing else.
“I’ve travelled all over the world and have been fortunate enough to befriend people from many different countries, beliefs and cultures.”
Mcilroy said that he was made to be “guilty by association” for playing a round with the president.
He confirmed that he had a “very enjoyable” day playing with Trump, and said that “he is very charismatic and was nice to everyone. He obviously has something, or he wouldn’t be in the White House.”
Mcilroy added: “That doesn’t mean I agree with everything — or, in fact, anything — that he says.”
When he was asked if he would play golf with Trump again, Mcilroy replied: “I know it’s very self-serving of me to say ‘no’ and, if I don’t, then it means then I’m not putting myself in a position to be put under scrutiny and that I’m avoiding that. But I probably wouldn’t, no.”
Mcilroy also criticised the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and said that he has not been acting like a leader.
“We’re in the midst of something that’s pretty serious right now and the fact that he’s trying to politicise it and make it a campaign rally and say that, ‘We administer the most tests in world’ like it is a contest — there’s some stuff that’s just terrible,’’ said the Holywood man, who missed the cut at his home Open at Royal Portrush last year. “It’s not the way a leader should act. And there is a sort of diplomacy that you need to show, and I just don’t think he’s showing that — especially in these times.” The four-time Major winner will play a televised game of golf for the first time in two months tomorrow, when he will take on Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler (above) in a round in aid of coronavirus charities.
Golf is scheduled to resume properly on June 11 in Texas, but Mcilroy said he is happy to be able to provide entertainment while fans wait for the sport’s return.
“What we’re doing is a great thing, it’s a very small piece of all of this, but I’m just happy to be able to help in some way and bring some joy to people, I guess, when they haven’t had anything to really look forward to for a couple of months now,” he commented.
WEST Belfast and West Germany had never felt so far apart. It was the end of the summer in 1994 when World Cup-winning striker Jurgen Klinsmann arrived for his first day of pre-season at Tottenham, the audacious nature of the transfer coup ensuring hundreds of fans had gathered to welcome him, and his VW Beetle (below), to the team’s training ground.
But while there was plenty of outside interest, there weren’t many first team players there to greet him.
As such, this superstar of world football found himself training with the youth team, standing next to another forward on his first day of duty with the Premier League side.
Paul Mcveigh looked across at his new club’s latest hero and came to a quick conclusion — he’d never make it as a professional footballer.
Growing up on Finaghy Road North, this hadn’t just been his dream, it had been everyone’s. He and his neighbours would spend every available minute playing in the street morning, noon and night. He’d been the only one togetthisfar.
At Lisburn Youth, despite being the smallest there, he stood out on his very first night. The story goes that he ended up at Spurs rather than Liverpool only because scout Rob Walker, attached to the north London club, beat his Merseyside counterpart in the footrace to Mcveigh’s father on the opposing touchline.
To that point, his life and his dreams had been merrily following along the same trajectory. Despite bringing his mother to tears as she bade her third-born child farewell, his departure for England had felt a triumphant one. He was leaving to make a living from football, just as he’d always wanted.
And yet, before a ball had even been kicked, already he felt he’d come as far as he’d go.
“A World Cup winner and a 16-year-old kid through this strange set of circumstances ended up standing beside each other at training, both on their first days at the club,” he remembers now at the age of 42.
“I looked at him, looked at myself, and right there and then thought there was no way in the world that I’d ever make it as a professional.
“That’s what a professional footballer looked like. He was like a film star, the nicest superstar you could ever meet, but like from a different planet.
“What I should have been doing was looking at him and thinking, ‘He’s where I want to be, playing in the Premier League and an international footballer. What is it he does? ’
“But instead, for years I held onto that belief that I wouldn’t match up without ever realising just how much doing that was holding me back. It was sabotage.”
And yet by the time of his retirement 10 years ago, he’d scored for Spurs at White Hart Lane, became a fan favourite at Norwich over the course of two promotion-winning spells, and won 20 caps for Northern Ireland. To fast-forward further still, today he has written a book on the mental performance required by the modern footballer and makes a living speaking to employees of some of the biggest companies in the world.
The event that changed the course of his career — in many ways, the course of his life — came somewhat by chance.
While growing up in west Belfast during the 1980s and ’90s had its own unique cadence, Mcveigh recalls an idyllic childhood. Indeed, it was the desire to recreate a little bit of home in his new surroundings that would, inadvertently, expose him to inspiration.
“You can’t not be influenced by growing up in west Belfast at that time,” he says. “Having that as a starting point is hugely influential. But you have to put that into context, all that was the normal way for us. It was only when I went across to Tottenham at the age of 16 that I realised that growing up in Belfast wasn’t all that normal.
“When I went to Spurs, I was living in a place called Enfield that’s really a sort of leafy suburbia of middle class England. Obviously, it was very, very different to what I was used to.
“One of my best friends from school — I’d played Gaelic football with him too — his sister and her husband lived just outside London. Wanting that little taste of home, that little bit of Irishness in England and that family setting, I’d go up practically every Sunday.
“Her husband Tim had played semi-pro football and he took me under his wing really. He knew much more about the world of football and just the world in general than I did at that stage.
“He gave me the book ‘Awaken the Giant Within’ by Anthony Robbins and that book changed my life, opened my eyes. It was like having