Rory McIlroy's indifference is understandable after achieving his dream

A snapshot of Rory McIlroy's new normal arrived the day before the US PGA Championship began. McIlroy's practice round at Quail Hollow was watched by more than 50, inside the ropes. Journalists, content creators, wannabe content creators … everyone wanted not just a glimpse – you can get that from the bleachers – but a piece of golf's latest grand slam man. McIlroy played a hole while being interviewed for the tournament's main preview show. All soft, knock-around stuff but inevitably a distraction.
It was difficult to shake the notion that Tiger Woods would never have tolerated such a scenario. It is also thankfully a truism that McIlroy is not Tiger Woods. The Northern Irishman's chatty, warm personality endears him to so many. In a non-tribal sport people root for Rory, none more so than at Augusta National when more that a decade of frustration ended amid euphoric April scenes. Hardened men shed tears in a media centre, no less.
In Pittsburgh, you needn't go far to encounter complaint at the long-term decline of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Even an iconic ballpark cannot pull in the masses any more. A few miles away at Oakmont, golf's chattering classes have a gripe of their own; Rory McIlroy and a refusal to engage as before with the media. It is a preposterous discussion on one level, as if four minutes of quotes after a 75 somehow impacts McIlroy's legacy as much as Masters glory. Yet it is also an intriguing one, if only when assessing why the 36-year-old turned mute. The simple answer is McIlroy is irritated, not unreasonably, after giving the very people now sniping probably the greatest story they will ever report upon. None of them were in New Orleans for McIlroy's first post-Masters appearance, where the five-time major winner was perfectly expansive.
Within two days of McIlroy being pursued by all and sundry at Quail Hollow, news emerged that his driver had failed a routine conformance test. This was a clumsy situation, largely on account of a needlessly secretive process but it was McIlroy's name alone that surfaced. It did via a partner broadcaster, which will have turned heads in Camp McIlroy. Conspiracy theorists ignored the fact he was 175th on the PGA Tour's driver accuracy table heading into the US PGA. There is a reason a seven-iron sits in McIlroy's display cabinet in Augusta's champions locker room.
Headlines subsequently surrounded McIlroy's failure to play the Memorial tournament in Ohio. The event had never appeared on McIlroy's schedule in the first place. Far more significant than McIlroy not advertising his plans is that he deems big events on the PGA Tour worthy of skipping. McIlroy has spoken about scaling down his playing commitments in the US; he will instead appear in India and Australia in 2025. The US-obsessed PGA Tour should be concerned by its biggest draw's dream of a properly global sport.
Sportspeople often speak of regret having not enjoyed their highest highs. With Green Jacket in tow, McIlroy headed to England and Northern Ireland. He did the chatshow circuit in New York. Presumably he found the Europa League final as tedious as the rest of us but he made sure he had a front-row seat in Bilbao.
The resetting of goals, the hitting of more greens, can wait. Few people know what on earth it is like to wake up one morning knowing the only thing that has got you out of bed for the last 10 years is now on your CV. A McIlroy psychological adjustment from this position is as necessary as it may be difficult. McIlroy is cheesed off that he is not playing well – a matter only exaggerated at Oakmont's brutal setup – when there is an abundance of rationale behind that. He is out of competitive sync.
'It's really hard to describe to somebody that hasn't really lived through it,' explained Scottie Scheffler. 'When I woke up after [winning] the PGA Championship this year, I literally felt like I got hit by a bus. I felt terrible. Mentally it is exhausting, physically it is a grind. I can only imagine how Rory felt after winning the career grand slam.'
After his third round at this US Open, he stood before the media when giving the impression he would rather be undergoing root canal treatment. He had skipped post-round duties for the previous six rounds in a row, only one of which was sub-70.
Until the tournament obligates players to talk when requested – which is precisely what they should do – McIlroy can demonstrate his general annoyance in this way. Golf's clickbait modern media world means McIlroy has no scope to speak on an off-the-record basis.
'I feel like I've earned the right to do whatever I want to do,' McIlroy said. His wording here was unusually clumsy, making him look entitled; which he is not. Even when trying to pay lip service, McIlroy cannot stop turning heads. His admission that he didn't care whether he made the Oakmont cut was as brutally honest as it was striking.
McIlroy has been irritated by elements of the media before. Last summer, he changed his phone number after untimely and intrusive messages asking for his thoughts on losing by a shot to Bryson DeChambeau at the US Open. McIlroy has never really explained his famous 'if you want to be in the circus, you have to put up with the clowns' comment of more than a decade ago but it appeared a pointed reference to press speculation. Despite these and other minor rumbles, McIlroy has been great for reporters; a constant source of news and unfailingly helpful towards those with whom he has built up proper relationships.
The sporting public will remember McIlroy's wondrous shot into the 15th at Augusta on Masters Sunday. They will recall a young man beating the turf on the 18th green while in floods of joyous tears. The media has played a part in McIlroy's profile and undoubtedly will do again. It is just that turning indifference from the golfer towards some of that group as a huge deal or grave error at this particular point in time feels needlessly self-aggrandising.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Sun

32 minutes ago

• The Sun

Friends and Spider-Man star dies in his sleep aged 96 after 60-year Hollywood career

LEGENDARY actor Jack Betts, known for his roles in Friends and Spider-Man, has died aged 96. The Hollywood star died in his sleep at his home in Los Osos, California, on Thursday. 2 2 Betts befriended Everybody Loves Raymond star Doris Roberts and shared a home with her. Born in Miami, Florida, in 1929, the legend first began his career on Broadway, in an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Richard III. He then went on to an incredibly successful career, playing various characters across TV shows and movies. Betts had a cameo in the Batman Forever movie in 1995 and Batman & Robin two years later. But after appearing as Hunt Powers across the Italian Spaghetti Western films, his career rocketed. The legend had bluffed his way into the 1966 Franco Giraldi's Sugar Coat starring role and he held it for 12 consecutive films - ending in 1972. Speaking to the Dev Show in 2021, he said: "In the hotel next to mine was Clint Eastwood. "He'd go up to his mountain and do his Western and I'd go up to my mountain and do my Western. "But while his films had distribution all over the world, my films were distributed [everywhere] except Canada and America." Betts then went back to Broadway and starred as Dracula between 1977 to 1980. .

BBC News

42 minutes ago

• BBC News

'In every theatre, people would leave': How 'gay cowboy movie' Brokeback Mountain challenged Hollywood

Twenty years ago, Ang Lee's drama about the love between two male sheep herders was finally released after a long struggle to get it made. It was a watershed moment for gay representation that balanced playing by Hollywood's rules and changing them. When it was released in 2005, Brokeback Mountain entered the collective consciousness in a way that is vanishingly rare for a film with queer subject matter. Even non-cinephiles would have been aware of the "gay cowboy movie", as it was often described in the press, and the subsequent controversy when it lost the Academy Award for best picture to Crash, a clumsy crime film that now regularly appears on lists of the worst Oscar winners ever. Brokeback Mountain did take home three Oscars, including a prestigious best director prize for Ang Lee, and remains a beloved gay touchstone. Actor Paul Mescal recently complained that it feels "lazy and frustrating' to compare his upcoming film The History of Sound, a period romance in which he and Josh O'Connor play travelling lovers in rural Maine, to Lee's tender neo-Western about romantically attracted sheep herders Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). Whether you agree with Mescal or not, the persistent comparisons are a sign of Brokeback Mountain's enduring impact and popularity. Indeed, to mark its 20th anniversary, Lee's film is now being re-released in US cinemas this week for a limited engagement. Adapted by screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana from a 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain was a relatively novel proposition back in 2004. "The fact its two leads were handsome A-list male stars and [it showed] their characters in a romantic story together was groundbreaking," says Tim Teeman, author of In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master. This view is broadly echoed by queer film critic Manuel Betancourt, author of Hello Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies, who says the film's success with critics and audiences alike felt like the start of a "new era of gay representation [on screen]". At the time, Brokeback Mountain looked like a surprising pivot from director Ang Lee, who had recently made the 2003 superhero film Hulk, though his other directing credits ranged from an acclaimed Jane Austen adaptation (1995's Sense and Sensibility) to a hugely successful martial arts film (2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The film's core cast was a quartet of hotly-tipped rising stars in their twenties: Ledger and Anne Hathaway would go on to win Oscars for subsequent roles, while Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams are rarely far from the awards season conversation. How it was pioneering "It's easy to take for granted the way that Brokeback Mountain, with its starry cast and A-list director, profoundly changed the shape of LGBTQ+ representation in the mainstream," argues Kyle Turner, author of The Queer Film Guide: 100 Films That Tell LGBTIA+ Stories. Turner notes that "the wave of mainstream queer moves in the 90s" tended to "toggle between Aids-related dramas like Philadelphia (1993) and And the Band Played On (1993), and lighter comedies like The Birdcage (1996) and In & Out (1997)". By contrast, he believes that Brokeback Mountain carved out a new niche as a "straightforward and serious" film that won "newfound respectability" for a romantic story involving same-sex lovers. That story begins in rural Wyoming in 1963, when drifters Ennis and Jack are hired by a local rancher to herd sheep through grazing ground on the titular Brokeback Mountain. One night, with their inhibitions loosened by moonshine, Jack makes a pass at Ennis and the two men have sex in a tent – a pretty audacious scene for a mainstream film in 2005. When Brokeback Mountain came out in December 2005, Ossana, who was also the film's producer, made a point of attending screenings in some of the US's more conservative states to gauge the audience's reaction. "The theatres were packed, and in every theatre it was the same – after the tent scene, five or six people would get up to leave," she tells the BBC. Brokeback Mountain grows sadder and more anguished after Ennis and Jack consummate their relationship. Their sheep-herding summer ends with the two men scrapping, presumably in frustration at the romantic feelings they dare not acknowledge. Ennis then marries his fianceé Alma (Williams), while Jack meets and marries rodeo rider Lureen (Hathaway). It's four years before the two men meet again, at which point Jack asks Ennis to leave Alma and build a life with him. Heartbreakingly, it's a giant leap that Ennis can't bring himself to make. "Everyone talks about the 1960s being a time of 'free love', but it was actually a very narrow-minded and restrictive time for many people in America – that's what the hippies were rebelling against," Ossana says. For Ennis, the prospect of living in a gay relationship with Jack is simply too much to countenance, so for the next 20 years, their passion is limited to sporadic fishing trips that are separate from their everyday lives. The men are affected by overt external homophobia: when Jack returns to Brokeback Mountain, he is told by a prejudiced rancher that there is no work there for men "who stem the rose", a deceptively elegant euphemism for gay sex. But ultimately, it is Ennis' deep-rooted internalised homophobia that thwarts their potential happiness. The challenges of getting it produced Thinly-veiled homophobia – this time in early-2000s Hollywood – made Brokeback Mountain an immense challenge for Ossana and her fellow producer James Schamus. After she read Proulx's short story in 1997, Ossana and screenwriting partner McMurtry persuaded the author to let them adapt it for the screen. "Annie said, 'I don't see a film there, but have at it,'" Ossana recalls. They completed the screenplay in three months, but it took nearly eight years to get the film into production. "The biggest problem was casting Ennis. Actors would commit and then back out, or they just were too afraid based upon what their representatives were telling them," she explains – because for an aspiring leading man at the time, playing a gay character was widely viewed as "career suicide". After Lee joined the project in 2001, the producers found an actor willing to play Ennis, but this star dropped out around five months later. "I already had a feeling he might back out," Ossana says, alluding to the widely held trepidation about playing a gay character. By this point, she was already convinced that Ledger was perfect for the role based on his haunting performance in the 2001 romantic drama Monster's Ball. Crucially, too, he had previously "played a gay teenager in a soap opera" in his native Australia, so Ossana hoped he might be more "open" than his American peers. Her hunch was correct, but Ossana says studio executives were initially reluctant to cast Ledger because they felt he wasn't "macho enough" to play a cowboy – or even a "wannabe cowboy", as she sees the character. "It was probably helpful, in terms of the film's infiltration into the mainstream, that [Ennis and Jack] are two men who inhabit a conventional kind of masculinity," Turner says. Betancourt believes Brokeback Mountain was able to provide a watershed moment in LGBTQ+ representation precisely because it was rooted in proven Hollywood tropes. "As a Western and a melodrama, it played within two well-worn genres and infused them both with new vibrancy – mainly due to the fact it's a love story between two men," he says. At the same time, Brokeback Mountain also adheres to another Hollywood trope: what Teeman describes as depicting "queer love as beautiful but doomed", a narrative that plays out in the likes of The Children's Hour (1961) and Philadelphia (1993). The two men's flickering romance is finally extinguished when Jack dies in ambiguous circumstances. Lureen tells Ennis over the phone that Jack was killed by an exploding tyre – though at the same time, we see images of Jack being viciously beaten by a group of men. Ennis is envisioning, all too believably, his lover being killed in a homophobic hate crime. Its debatable legacy Perhaps because it played by the rules while challenging them at the same time, Brokeback Mountain's place in film history is assured. In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, which recognises works that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It occupies an equally integral, though more complicated place, in the queer film pantheon. "As a piece of cinema, it remains as ravishing and disarming as ever," Betancourt argues, "but as a pivot point for queer representation, it remains as singular but limiting as it was then." It is, after all, the story of two closeted gay or possibly bisexual men who "pass" as straight in their everyday lives. More like this:• Why Requiem for a Dream still divides• The darkest children's film ever made?• The horror that traumatised millennials Though Brokeback Mountain remains important and influential, it's difficult to quantify its long-term impact on LGBTQ+ representation. Teeman notes that Hollywood gave a green light to several "mainstream queer-themed films" in its wake, notably Milk (2008) and The Kids Are All Right (2010); these were followed in turn by Carol (2014), Moonlight (2016) and Call Me by Your Name (2017). But he also believes "there's little consistency and regularity in the flow of queer-themed stories and lead characters to the screen". For Teeman, "TV and theatre are [still] more radical than film when it comes to queer representation." Brokeback Mountain also retains a unique relevance because of its place in the ongoing debate about whether straight actors should play gay roles. Both Gyllenhaal and Ledger, who died in 2008, are widely presumed to be heterosexual, though Ossana says it was "none of my business" as a producer to ask questions about their sexual orientation. "It's the old chestnut, and Brokeback Mountain is the ultimate exemplar," Teeman says. But even with these caveats, it remains a stunning and heartbreaking piece of cinema that strikes a particular chord with LGBTQ+ viewers. Brokeback Mountain offers a stark reminder that denying your true identity is a tragedy that can derail several lives at once. Brokeback Mountain is being re-released in US cinemas, beginning with special showings on June 22 and 25. -- If you liked this story sign up for The Essential List newsletter, a handpicked selection of features, videos and can't-miss news, delivered to your inbox twice a week. For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

The Guardian

an hour ago

• The Guardian

Trump's coalition is self-destructing over the Iran war question

You have to admit that there's something delicious about watching Ted Cruz get served his just deserts by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In a nearly two-hour long interview on Carlson's own channel and in Cruz's Washington office, Carlson repeatedly grilled, roasted, and fried the Texas senator, exposing a deepening rift within the Maga movement and showing us the hollowness of our so-called leaders along the way. You don't have to be a fan of Carlson to enjoy the spectacle of a Republican civil war. Carlson, who once hosted a show on CNN, established his reputation on Fox News and then became 'a racist demagogue and promoter of far-right disinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories', as a 2023 profile in Mother Jones described him. While at Fox, he was for a time the highest rated personality on cable TV and was deeply influential in setting the conservative agenda. On air at Fox – and in this essay for Politico – he praised Trump. Off-air, he was texting his colleagues a different opinion: 'We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,' Carlson wrote in a text sent on 4 January 2021. 'I truly can't wait,' he wrote, adding: 'I hate him passionately.' So there's something fishy about Carlson. We all know it. Even Fox knew it. He was abruptly fired from the network in 2023 and later launched his own streaming service, the Tucker Carlson Network, in December 2023. His 2024 interview of Vladimir Putin has raised questions about judgment. 'I am definitely more sympathetic to Putin than Zelenskyy,' he told NewsNation. Questionable, to say the least. Carlson is also a much under-appreciated actor. He will explode in giddy laughter in one second only to turn accusatory the next. He lures you in with a goofy gaze, but he is extremely quick on his feet. He somehow always looks like he just got back from summer vacation. People call him a pundit. I think of him more as a performance artist. While the interview with Cruz illustrates some of Carlson's abilities, it was also a masterclass in highlighting Cruz's main talent. Over the years, Cruz has honed the marvelous skill of brilliantly showcasing his own limitations (such as the time Cruz ran off to Cancún in the middle of a devastating power outage that occurred during a deep freeze in Texas). The Carlson-Cruz interview centered on a few topics: the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) on American politics, if Aipac should register as a foreign agent (Carlson: Yes. Cruz: No), and who blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, among others. The question of the United States going to war with Iran, however, was at the center of the interview, as it is also at the center of our national politics right now. 'How many people live in Iran, by the way?' Carlson asks Cruz. 'I don't know the population,' Cruz responds. 'You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?' Carlson asks, incredulously. Cruz shoots back. 'How many people live in Iran?' Carlson quickly responds, '92 million. How could you not know that?' 'I don't sit around memorizing population tables,' Cruz says defensively. 'Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government,' Carlson says. 'I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran!' 'You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of their government. You don't know anything about the country!' 'No. You don't know anything about the country!' And so it went. The whole fiasco was at times childish, other moments vindictive, but all over simply wonderful, as the Maga world implodes on its own fissures, ignorance, and contradictions. A case in point. Cruz repeatedly lashes out at the Iranian regime for basing its politics on religion, while he wishes to use his own theology to justify his politics. Carlson is having none of it. It began with Cruz telling Carlson that he was 'taught from the bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.' 'Those who bless the government of Israel?' Carlson asks. Cruz responds that 'it doesn't say the government of Israel. It says the nation of Israel. That's in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe that.' Carlson presses Cruz. 'Where is that?' 'I can find it for you. I don't have the scripture off the tip of my, pull out the phone and use Google.' 'It's in Genesis,' Carlson quickly says. 'So you're quoting a Bible phrase that you don't have context for and you don't know where it is, and that's like your theology? I'm confused.' The Maga movement is doomed to self-destruct at some point, full as it of too many contradictory tendencies. We already saw it crack when Elon and Donald took a relationship pause recently. But there are other fractures. Trump ran on a platform that was supposed to end all wars immediately. That clearly hasn't happened. In fact, he may soon bring the United States into another endless war in the Middle East. The prospect is widely disliked, even by his base. Only 19% of those who voted for Trump in 2024 think 'the US military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran'. Maga diehard Marjorie Taylor Greene now calls Fox News 'propaganda', saying the American people have been 'brainwashed into believing that America has to engage in these foreign wars in order for us to survive, and it's absolutely not true.' Steve Bannon, a key influence on Trump, told reporters this week that 'We don't want any more forever wars.' He added: 'We can't do this again. We'll tear the country apart. We can't have another Iraq.' For his part, Trump offered his typically bold leadership by telling reporters 'Nobody knows what I'm going to do.' Presumably that nobody also includes him. The White House later said that Trump will 'make a decision on whether to attack Iran within two weeks'. Bannon further believes that, if Trump does drag the US into war, most of his base will ultimately follow. The Democratic party, unsurprisingly, can't decide what it wants, though only 10% of those who voted for Harris in 2024 favor going to war. In other words, the US entering Israel's war with Iran is massively disliked across the political spectrum. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. Our fractured and hollow politics may actually enable it. If it happens, the Maga movement may not survive, but do they really have to take the rest of us down with them along the way? Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist