This is how golf works... Rory’s playing the game
EVEN though it is believed he probably never said it, Wellington’s line about the battle of Waterloo being won on the playing fields of Eton has echoed across centuries. It made sense to a British establishment reliant upon its exclusive public schools for political and military leadership. And it has appealed to generations of elites since because it fits with the notion of leaders cultivating their excellence through sport.
In years to come, when fuller accounts of this country’s economic collapse are written, it will be interesting to see how much we lost on the golf courses of Ireland.
Imagine all the deals done by overweight men in unflattering pastels puffing up and down fairways across the land.
Business and politics have longtomed standing relationships with golf. It is the executive pastime preferred over all other sports, a place to cut deals and build relationships and impress clients.
One of the wonders of attending the Masters is the parade of overweight, middle-aged white men puffing on cigars the size of a Labrador’s leg.
These characters make up the majority of the attendance outside the ropes, rich men free to roam their Disneyland.
Rory McIlroy knows these men well. They are the millionaires who support his foundation, around whom he smiles during pro-ams, the people who sit on the boards of the companies that pay him millions in sponsorship.
They are the residents of his hinterland. He must have passed hundreds of hours in the company of these people, because it is their money that makes golf one of the most lucrative sports in the world.
Professional golfers are accus- to laughing at their bad jokes, watching patiently as they stiffly swing at the ball, and hiding their boredom at another millionaire used to a pliant audience.
Remember all this before condemning McIlroy for playing golf with Donald Trump.
In the world of McIlroy, people like Trump are not grotesque rarities. Rather, they are the course owners or the rich sponsors.
Trump is merely the best-known of the moneyed men that McIlroy has teed up alongside in his life. Playing 18 holes with Trump does not mean the world No3 supports his policies or approves of his absurd and sinister political machinations.
The reaction to their round was predictably screechy. The US president is a divisive figure in his own country but almost uniformly loathed beyond it. There are sound reasons for much of the distaste but there is also a need to be seen to disapprove of him.
This is typically manifested on social media and often ignores the important point that Trump, awful as he may be, won a democratic election. It was via Twitter that plenty of the anger towards McIlroy was channelled, and so the level of reasoned debate was predictably low.
The anger failed to recognise McIlroy’s right to keep whatever company he chooses, and it also entirely failed to understand the world McIlroy inhabits, and the extent to which it is populated by badly tanned billionaires with suspect hair.
Golf is a tremendous sport, like the best ones distinguished by skill, courage and the fruits of years of hard work. But as a business it is as unashamedly hard-nosed as any other, and probably more than most.
The absence of Democratic voters on the PGA tour has been frequently noted, and the New York Times reports that 50 of 56 players recently asked if they would play a round with Trump said they would.
There is the famous story of the 1993 US Ryder Cup team initially refusing to meet Bill Clinton before the competition.
None of them had voted for him and they wanted to snub him to protest at his tax plans, which they believed were unfairly focused on the wealthy. Eventually their captain Tom Watson had to force them into meeting golf fanatic Clinton. Theirs is a rich man’s world. Trump’s love of golf long ago developed into a valuable business, and he is in lockstep with those tour pros determined to keep their fortunes as safe from the redistributive evil of the US tax system as possible.
McIlroy does not have the look of a Trump supporter. He appears a compassionate and generous man, qualities not easily associated with the Republican Party.
But he has also spent most of his life buried deeply in golf. In his world, figures like Trump are not exceptional. There is always another billionaire looking to impress the Major winner.
This is an environment alien to most of us and repellent to many.
This, though, is the inner workings of golf exposed.