At 30, Rory faces challenge of trumping Faldo and Seve
ThirTy is a landmark age in any walk of life, where you pause for breath, assess how far you’ve come and how far you want to go. When it comes to the first part of the equation, rory Mcilroy — who will reach that age on Saturday — will surely do so with an enormous sense of satisfaction.
Even if he packed up tomorrow, he’d be one of the top three European golfers of all time, alongside Sir Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros. With his victory at the Players Championship last month, he became only the third player, after Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, to win four majors and 15 times on the PGA Tour before the age of 30. On the financial front, he’s got more money than the next 10 generations of Mcilroys could ever spend.
So far, so brilliant. But what happens now? Will he kick on like Faldo did once he reached 30? Or have we seen his best years, as was the case with Seve?
it’s interesting in this context to look closely at the records of the illustrious pair. Faldo achieved his first major the day after turning 30 and won five more.
in his twenties, he won 12 times in Europe and once in America — thereafter, he won 16 times and on eight occasions, respectively.
Seve was the complete opposite. Of his 50 victories in Europe, 33 were achieved before the age of 30. Nine wins in America, but only two in his thirties. The majors were the same — four in his twenties, one thereafter.
At 30, therefore, Mcilroy is perhaps a stride behind Seve but at least a couple of laps ahead of Faldo. Now he’s grappling with the sort of mental issues that affected Seve at the same age. At 29, Ballesteros put the ball into the water at the 15th hole at Augusta to end his chances of winning the 1986 Masters and admitted to me a decade later that he was never the same again.
he started crying when i asked him about it, saying how much he had wanted to win for his father, who had died a short time before. he said it was the day he lost his destino.
We saw all too clearly at the Masters last month the crippling mental effect that chasing the career Grand Slam is having on Mcilroy. With his juggling balls, self-help books and meditation, no one can say he is not searching long and hard for a solution. Mcilroy will turn 30 at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail hollow in North Carolina — serendipitously, the scene of his first victory in America at the age of just 21. in his quest to follow up his Seve-like career in his twenties with a Faldo-like one in his thirties, he could emulate the Englishman by winning the day after he turns 30. Furthermore, his first major will be at a course right up his alley, when the USPGA takes place at Bethpage in a little over a fortnight.
This will also be the decade when rory and his wife Erica are hopefully blessed with children and you get the feeling he will be one of those players who benefits enormously from the perspective kids bring.
As such, there remains hope he will go on to combine the achievements of Seve and Faldo to rival the career of Gary Player.
happy 30th to rory, then. What happens to him over the next few years will not only be fascinating to watch but, alongside Tiger’s fate, shape the narrative of the sport.