Spieth’s work cut out to repeat title honours
Rory McIlroy knows just how hard it is to follow up a blockbuster season with another major success, he tells James Corrigan
RORY McIlroy understands exactly how sweet Jordan Spieth’s turkey will have tasted. He has been there himself, on more than one occasion; magnificently replete with a full stomach but hungrily anticipating more of the same in 2016. More titles, more majors, more plaudits as the game’s best.
Except, unless you are Tiger Woods circa 2002, it is rarely this straightforward. Take McIlroy’s example.
He looked unbeatable at the end of 2012 and 2014, but in the season thereafter human fallibility applied the brakes. Whether it was a breakdown of the game (as in 2013) or a freak injury (as in 2015), McIlroy’s ambitions of the festive break before were not nearly fulfilled.
Now it will be over to Master Spieth, the World No 1 and reigning Masters and US Open champion, to see if he can shake off the hangover.
McIlroy recognises the cool head of his young rival, but believes it will require all of the Texan’s renowned temperament to deal with pressure.
“It will feel completely different for Jordan,” McIlroy, speaking from Facebook’s Dublin offices, said.
“If you look at the stats at how those who have had a double-major season have performed the next year . . . well, it’s hard to back up. It just is. There’s so much expectation, so much attention and focus. And I think it is more self-inflicted pressure, really, as your expectations are so high.
“This time last year mine were through the roof coming off a great season, winning those back-toback majors, and although I started well I never felt I really got into my stride with the injuries and stuff.”
Perhaps more than any big-time sport, golf has a habit of ensuring there are lows to visit, no matter how long the succession of peaks. For McIlroy, of course, it came this year on that artificial pitch near his home in Bangor, where he went over on his ankle. Before that moment in a kick-about with friends, McIlroy was bubbling, with three titles to his name, as well as two top 10s behind Spieth in the campaign’s opening pair of majors.
How quickly his aspirations were deflated, lying there with a ruptured tendon, he feared would rule out the rest of the year.
As it happened, McIlroy was only to miss three tournaments – the Scottish Open and his defences at the Open and the WGC Bridgestone Invitational – and he was able to claw back some consolation by winning a third European Tour Order of Merit.
McIlroy took great heart from that season-ending win at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, where he held off an inspired Andy Sullivan down the stretch. “It was the first time since the injury that I got a bit of speed back in my swing; I was hitting it long and I finally was playing how I wanted to play again,” he said.
Of course, it was inevitable that his engagement to Erica Stoll would attract all the headlines in the last month, and he is quite certain that such blessed stability in his home life will only help his game.
Yet in terms of the nitty-gritty of his profession, his second operation of the year may be more resonant. In 1999, Woods underwent laser eye surgery and the next season won three majors. Could it have a similar effect on McIlroy? “No pressure then!” McIlroy laughed. “I never thought I’d have the chance to be an Olympic athlete,” he said speaking about the Rio Olympics.
“It will be a great experience, going down to Rio and being a part of it, but it’s not like with the other athletes, where we’ll get the chance to go enjoy the three weeks. We’re in and out in a week,” he said.
Just one more ambition for McIlroy to carry into 2016. Spieth should be warned, because McIlroy just loves an evenly-numbered year. — The Daily Telegraph