Rory should forgive Roy over autograph ‘snub’
BY tempering his view of Roy Keane in the weak heat of a child’s anger, Rory McIlroy is making a mistake. A day before he revealed that Keane refused to sign an autograph for him in McIlroy’s boyhood, the golfer talked about his hopes of finishing an underwhelming 2017 with some better performances, starting at the Dunhill Links this week.
This has not been a good season for McIlroy. He had not won up to this week’s tournament, but he talked of injury militating against consistency, and happiness in his personal life compensating for any professional discomfort he may have felt.
As a figure of public interest, McIlroy’s status is determined by golf, not by domestic contentment. And when his career is being tallied and his place among golf’s greats is determined, 2017 will not be asterisked as a campaign in which he suffered rib damage that hampered him through the year.
In measuring greatness, outcomes matter, not explanations.
Roy Keane understands that. Where McIlroy was recognised as preternaturally talented when still a small boy, Keane had to stalk greatness and pursue it with a gimlet-eyed hunger.
His sporting life is a story of overachievement, of application and determination combining with substantial but in no way remarkable natural abilities.
The result was one of the outstanding midfielders in the world game of the past 30 years.
Injury caused major disruption in Keane’s career on more than one occasion, but he rebounded with a type of grim relish.
Considering these two remarkable men, a sentiment of Michael Jordan’s comes to mind. ‘I’d rather see it done than hear it done,’ he said, and it is a view Keane would find sensible.
He was not a Trappist in his day, and nor is he in retirement, but Keane complemented razor-wired opinions with regular success.
McIlroy is a man whose victories should not be forgotten, either, but the difference is that his career still looks unfulfilled. His failure to win a Masters is a weakness afflicting many other great golfers; it is not a burden that should shame him.
But the familiar nature of his disappointments at Augusta every April indicates a player too stubborn to correct the putting deficiencies in his game. It is on the greens that McIlroy’s shortcomings are regularly exposed, and the fact they have not been convincingly addressed means Augusta is likely to be a site of frustration for him in the future.
He is the best golfer Ireland has yet produced, one of the best in the world, but we have known that for almost a decade now. Where once, though, it was presumed he would rise to the level of Tiger Woods and perhaps get close to Jack Nicklaus’ staggering total of 18 majors, he remains on four and with the torrent of emerging talents, especially in America, he will do very well to reach 10. McIlroy, like Keane, should be celebrated. They are two of the most famous Irish sportspeople in the world, and they associate this island with high standards and great deeds.
The pair should also be commended for their candour. Keane’s willingness to talk plainly regularly kindles controversy, as he did this week with his blunt views on concussion. As is common when he speaks, there was a hinterland beyond the widely-reported line about people playing chess if they are worried about concussion.
However, he shows no interest in taking the time to soften the common public representation of him.
McIlroy shares with Keane a propensity for honesty that is rare among figures with their profile. It explains why he told that story about Keane refusing him an autograph.
Where Keane can sound shorttempered, though, McIlroy is gentler and more indulgent. This is partly explained by the fields in which they operate; probing questions and a hostile atmosphere are more common after a Premier League match than a golf tournament media room, where the vibe is best described as ‘clubbable’.
Golf is also the most corporate sport in the world, where the value placed on manners and projecting the correct image is very high. Within that environment, though, McIlroy is nonetheless distinguished by his honesty.
On the Keane criticism, however, he is wrong. In golf, refusing a child an autograph is regarded as a sin, as well as being bad for business.
That does not apply in soccer, a crustier and more cynical world.
But even if Keane was rude, it doesn’t diminish in any way what he achieved, or how his career stands as a towering monument to the pursuit of improvement.