ON THE EVE of the Irish Open in Carton House this weekend, Pádraig Harrington has some advice for Rory McIlroy: go with the flow.
The Holywood man has shown during his relatively short career that he can run pretty hot or very cold, challenging for the sport’s biggest prizes or missing cuts and heading home early.
Harrington insists however that his younger colleague should embrace his rollercoaster form and he’ll enjoy the time in between the highs a lot more.
“If he embraces that, I think there will be less of the lows and more of the consistent highs,” Harrington said at the Kildare venue yesterday. “The more he fights that, the more there will be the highs and lows.
“But Rory is ‑‑ the great thing about Rory, he’s only ever one golf shot away from playing great. You know, he’s proved that numerous times. You only have to think back to Wachovia, the one that he won, he was missing the cut and very down about his game and finished eagle, birdie, par to make the cut and went on to win it and obviously never looked back.
“But he’s had different periods like that, and as long as Rory understands that and accepts that, he actually has ‑‑ the more he fights against it, the more he looks for consistency, the harder it is to get it. I know I said it before; consistency is highly overrated in this game.
“And if anybody thinks Faldo was consistent, too, he was known as the man for consistency; would probably go look at his career, and he wasn’t. He won six Majors in probably ’79 to ’93, was ’93 his last one? I know he played from ’75‑‑ so it took him 15 years to win six Majors. So it’s not like that was‑‑ people label him as a consistent player and Rory would never be in that category of wanting to be like that; it’s the last thing he wants to be is consistent.
“All he has to do is embrace that the highs will be very high and not worry about the lows. Yeah, embrace it and accept it. It will make for a lot less stress in between. But in the end of the day, and this is the absolute hundred per cent thing guaranteed, at the end of the year, players only remember how many tournaments you’ve won. You don’t remember how many cuts you’ve made. And with Rory having won two Majors, he’s in no shape or form counting finishing Top‑5 or Top‑10 in a major; it means nothing.
“So as much as, I kind of explain it like this: You can have a player who could win 50 tournaments in his career. That would be a lot of tournaments. So some day in his career he would walk off his career, he would be ecstatic. But if he doesn’t have a major, he would always feel like there’s something wanting. Whereas you have some players that have won one major tournament and very few else, he will have less Sundays on his playing career when he feels satisfied. But when he finishes his career, he’ll have lifelong satisfaction.
Rory McIlroy waits for his girlfriend, Caroline Wozniacki to practice during day one of the Wimbledon Championships this week.
Pic: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire.
“So the short ‑term stuff of not winning on a Sunday, it’s a point and we all want to play well and we all like ‑‑ again here is another analogy to it. I went out on Sunday last week and I had a vague chance, I could have got to 12‑under par. So I shoot a bad score. I leave dejected.
Another guy goes out there and he shoots 5‑ or 6‑under par to finish Top‑10 and he’s elated. That guy never had a chance of winning the tournament. So he’s leaving the tournament feeling‑‑ he’s satisfied and the other guy has lost‑‑ maybe the guy finished 10‑under, like almost feeling terrible, he had a winning but in the end of the day it almost was a better week.
“Rory has to accept that; just wait for the good weeks. How many people would love to be able to say that, if I play well, I’m going to win. Most people think I’ve got to play well and get the breaks to win. But Rory has to be in the situation, all he has to do is play well, not get any bad breaks and he’ll win.
“Certainly that comes obviously with maturity and he’s pretty experienced as it is at the moment, because over time, I think he knows already; I don’t think we need to be telling him anything. I’m certainly not telling him anything in what I’m saying here. I do believe he realises that he’s not mediocre in any shape or form and that’s why he never plays mediocre. He either plays great or he doesn’t,” he added.
