If McIlroy had played with Trump in a white hood, I’d get outraged
Cut Rory some slack, all he did was have a round of golf...
ON Friday afternoon, I rode in one of President Trump’s golf buggies at Trump National Doral just outside Miami. He wasn’t in it, you understand, but it is his course, so he owned it. A couple of hours later, I had a drink in the Champions’ Bar and Grill in the Doral clubhouse. And so I put money in the president’s pocket.
It was my first time at Doral and I was impressed. It was hard not to be. It was a beautiful spring day in south Florida and a friend and I followed his son for a few holes as he played with his coach on the front nine of the Blue Monster and a light breeze rustled the palm trees. It felt like golfing heaven.
If I ever got the chance to cover a tournament there, I’d jump at it. If I ever got the opportunity to interview Trump about golf, I think I’d probably jump at that too.
Does any of this suggest I endorse the wider views of President Trump or that I support the idea of a ban on nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries entering the US? Does it mean I’m in favour of building walls or the fascistic banning of news organisations from Press conferences or demeaning women?
Does it mean I’m not aware of the dangers of normalising some of Trump’s behaviour? I don’t think so. It just means I liked Doral and the history associated with it. It also means it would be rather hypocritical of me to condemn McIlroy for playing 18 holes with the president last Sunday.
Sure, part of me would have liked McIlroy to have turned down Trump’s invitation because the fight against Trump and what he stands for is a fight worth having. But if we’re looking for golfers to be the first to man the barricades, then we are in even more trouble than we thought.
In the hierarchy of those normalising Trump, McIlroy is a lot lower down the pecking order than the news organisations who attended the White House Press conference on Friday when their rivals were told they could not be there. That was important. McIlroy’s game of golf was not.
McIlroy is not here to sate our need for a new sporting icon for the protest movement. That is not his world. His world is gated communities and rigid rulebooks. He is a child of the country clubs of the PGA Tour, not a character from For Whom the Bell Tolls. To imagine otherwise is a fantasy. I would have liked it if Michael Jordan had used his huge influence to speak up for civil rights or Cristiano Ronaldo had used his fame to campaign, say, for an end to homophobia in football. But those are my interests, not theirs.
Not every sportsman has the conviction of Muhammad Ali or the courage of Andy Flower and Henry Olonga. Not every sportswoman is an outspoken radical like Billie Jean King. We are often drawn to anti-Establishmentarians because they symbolise rebellion and independence but some people would rather walk down a different path. Not everyone wants to be The Wild One.
And anyway, why should agreeing to a round of golf imply support for all, or any, of Trump’s views? The simple truth is that it doesn’t. Does a conversation imply support? No. Does a debate imply support? No.
McIlroy has an acquaintance with Trump that pre-dates his election as president. On the upper level of the club shop at Doral, Trump has displayed in a frame a letter that McIlroy sent him after the 2015 WGC-Cadillac Championship at the course, the tournament where McIlroy hurled a three-iron into a lake in frustration. The club is displayed in a case too.
McIlroy’s note is a polite letter of thanks. Nothing more. ‘Thank you again for the salvage operation on my 3-iron,’ the letter concludes. ‘I look forward to catching up again in the very near future.’
Who knows what the two men discussed as they and their playing partners made their way around Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach last Sunday? Maybe McIlroy voiced disquiet about some of Trump’s policies. Maybe he didn’t. You know what, he might even agree with some of the president’s ideas. More than 62 million Americans did when they elected him last year.
Or maybe McIlroy was just curious. Wouldn’t you be? Like I said, if somebody offered me an interview with Trump, I’d take it in a heartbeat. Maybe McIlroy valued the chance to spend some time with the most powerful man in the world. Maybe he wanted to develop a more informed opinion on him.
MANY didn’t see it that way. Tiger Woods and Ernie Els have already played golf with Trump since the election and escaped largely without censure. Not McIlroy. He has been accused of normalising fascism, bigotry and much else besides.
And he has been stung by it. ‘This wasn’t an endorsement nor a political statement of any kind,’ McIlroy wrote on Twitter on Friday night. ‘It was, quite simply, a round of golf. Golf was our common ground, nothing else. To be called a fascist and a bigot by some people because I spent some time in someone’s company is ridiculous.’
McIlroy’s right: he did not make a political statement, however much some people want to interpret it as such. In 1938, the England football team that included Stanley Matthews and Cliff Bastin lined up for a match at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin and, during the playing of the German national anthem, made the Nazi salute en masse.
‘All the courtesies were observed,’ says the commentary accompanying the British Movietone footage. That’s what embarrassment looks like. That’s what being made into a political pawn looks like.
If McIlroy had wandered round Trump International wearing a white hood, I’d understand the outrage. There are many, many things to worry us about the early weeks of Trump’s presidency. The fact that McIlroy played golf with him is not one of them.