HOLYWOOD, Northern Ireland — Tucked away on a steep hillside high above County Down, overlooking Belfast Lough, sits the 6,100-yard parkland runway from which Rory McIlroy took flight.<\/p>\n
And no matter how high he soars or how far his reach extends or how many days pass until he returns, Holywood Golf Club will always be home.<\/p>\n
Here in the Emerald Isle, golf is more than a game. It is a connector. Families. Friends. Generations. Here, there\u2019s a different reverence for history. You just … feel it.<\/p>\n
Locals explain that the game\u2019s origins in Northern Ireland reach back 145 years to Royal Belfast, just down the hill from here. Holywood came along in 1904. And in 1994, it realized it had a prodigy on the premises.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked very closely with a professional in the juvenile section, and he told me about this young lad who was going to be very good,\u201d said Eddie Harper, a gentleman nursing a recent knee replacement, who for decades oversaw Holywood\u2019s junior program. \u201c[Rory] was 5 or 6.\u201d<\/p>\n
That pro he mentioned was Michael Bannon, who went on to become Rory\u2019s longtime coach. In 1996, Bannon approached Harper with a plea: Admit the kid to the club. He\u2019s too good to deny it. The minimum age for admittance was 10. Rory was 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had Rory in for the interview; dark suit, red tie, white shirt, sat down in front of me, very polite,\u201d Harper said. \u201cWe talked about behavior, etiquette, and he piped up, said, \u2018Mr. Harper, if you let me into this club, I\u2019ll not hold anybody up. I know all the rules of golf and I\u2019m a very quick player.\u2019 He got in. And the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n
As golf goes, possibly the rarest history. Just six men have completed the career glam slam, winning all four major championships: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and — as of April 2025 — Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n
IN MARCH 2026, McIlroy strides into the dimly lit living room of a rental home at Bay Hill. There are three rooms in the house, each of which is stuffed full of television crews and equipment. ESPN goes first.<\/p>\n
We share pleasantries, but I quickly request to get started. McIlroy is invariably honest and considerate to the media, thoughtful in response and genuinely curious. He often gives time he doesn\u2019t have. And he doesn\u2019t have much today. I get 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
He starts by succinctly detailing his major championship experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found the first three pretty quickly and pretty easily in my career,\u201d McIlroy says. \u201cThat last one was my kryptonite.\u201d<\/p>\n
After shooting 80 in the final round of the 2011 Masters to give away a four-shot lead, McIlroy rebounded and won the 2011 US Open at age 22, running through Congressional Country Club in historic fashion. He added the Open Championship and the PGA Championship by 25. Nothing, it seemed, could stop him.<\/p>\n
But each year in early April, as the azaleas bloomed at Augusta National, McIlroy consistently wilted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just couldn\u2019t — I couldn\u2019t figure out a way to get it done,\u201d McIlroy says. \u201cAnd I kept trying. And I kept coming back. And, probably since 2011, driving out of Augusta National every Sunday night disappointed, and …\u201d<\/p>\n
He pauses.<\/p>\n
\u201cGutted?\u201d I suggest.<\/p>\n
\u201cGutted,\u201d McIlroy confirms.<\/p>\n
There were some bright spots. He specified 2022, when he shot a Masters Tournament career-best 8-under 64 and holed out from the right greenside bunker to post a runner-up finish to Scottie Scheffler.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was probably the least disappointed I felt at any one time going out of there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For 16 years, Holywood and all of Ireland watched their boy anguish at Augusta. Time and again, they shared and felt his heartbreak.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a cloud had come down, we were all very depressed about it,\u201d Harper said, leaning against a who-knows-how-old brick wall across the cart path from the Holywood first tee. \u201cIt took so long before he won something, word started to get around — will he ever win another major? People began to doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy had been so close so many times. There was the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club when he finished second to Wyndham Clark after failing to card a birdie during the final 17 holes. And the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, when he held a two-shot lead with five holes to play and missed a pair of short putts over the final three holes, allowing Bryson DeChambeau to win.<\/p>\n
But as painful as those moments were, Augusta was always worse. Final hurdles have a way of feeling higher, especially when they represent the obstacle toward the finish line of a childhood dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been a dreamer, big, big dreams, big ideas. I\u2019ve never lost that,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI\u2019ve never let the world take that from me. I think the world can turn you into a pretty cynical person, if you let it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say [the Masters] was the — burden\u2019s not the right word — but I was carrying this lifelong dream of winning all the majors, you know? I said that to anyone that would listen, when I was 7 or 8 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n
IN 1998, WHEN McIlroy was 9, he won the junior under-10 world championship at Doral. That was the moment everything changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, his fame, if that\u2019s the right word, had spread around the club,\u201d Harper said. \u201cHe won the world under 10 and that put him in the spotlight. He appeared on [Gerry Kelly\u2019s show] in Belfast hitting golf balls into a washing machine, and that created widespread interest. So then word got \u2018round the whole of country about Rory, and it put a lot of pressure on him because people were expecting him to do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club basically said, look, we have to look after this guy because there is something there,\u201d club president Tony Denvir said. \u201cObviously, his father, his uncle, his grandfather was a superb player. So it\u2019s in the genes of the McIlroy family, obviously. \u201d<\/p>\n
As a little boy Rory was here, hitting plastic golf balls up and down hallways, often to the chagrin of the members. He was here as a 9-year-old, winning tournaments on far-away continents. He was here a teenager causing trouble. He was here as a 22-year-old major champion. And he was here last April when he completed the grand slam.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the reason I\u2019m here: to find the how behind the who. Within a few hours you understand why Rory is Rory.<\/p>\n
Part of that is his parents\u2019 work ethic, and his appreciation for how deeply they sacrificed for his dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cGerry and Rosie kept the feet firmly on the ground; they showed him such a tremendous work ethic with what they had to do,\u201d Ruth Watt, HGC lady captain, said. \u201cThey worked nonstop, and yes, traveled the length and breadth of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The McIlroys gave so much to Rory\u2019s career. His mother, Rosie, worked a graveyard shift at a factory in Bangor, stuffing rolls of tape into cardboard shipping boxes. His father, Gerry, was a barkeep at multiple watering holes, including the one at which I sat with Denvir and former HGC club president Stephen Tullin, small-talking the weather.<\/p>\n
The bar is polished granite, positioned just inside the door from a parking lot reserved for dignitaries. Rory has his own designated parking spot, positioned closest to the pro shop. Denvir and Tullin meet here daily to toss back 5 o\u2019clock pints of crisp lager. Three months have passed, they tell me, since they last saw the sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks for bringin\u2019 the good weather with ya!\u201d they howl.<\/p>\n
We cheers and nod. It\u2019s Ireland.<\/p>\n
Today they welcome an outsider in, one of the estimated thousand-plus in the past year who traveled from far and wide to immerse in an historical experience unique to them: Rory\u2019s root system.<\/p>\n
Midway through a half-hour conversation that quickly transitions from rain to identity, they teeter on an emotional seesaw. One moment it thrusts skyward towards belly laughter and fist-pumping, beer-spilling euphoria. The next, it plummets into misty-eyed reminiscence. They were accustomed to heartbreak.<\/p>\n
McIlroy is the fulcrum on which these emotional extremes hinge. He is the pride and joy of this establishment, this town — and in some contexts this country.<\/p>\n
Denvir is seated to my left, Tullin to his left. Denvir has short gray hair, a wry smile and a contemplative mind. Tullin is quick with a joke and sprinkles morsels of Irish gold into his sentences. As I teach them the proper usage of \u201cy\u2019all,\u201d they regale me in Rory stories.<\/p>\n
Tullin: \u201cUsed to be a table tennis table in here, and I played him for a tenner. He beat me, so I had to give him a tenner. That\u2019s my claim to fame — playing Rory at anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denvir: \u201cMeeting him for the first time. Whenever he won his first major, [the 2011] U.S. Open at Congressional, he came back here, and I didn\u2019t know what to expect. But he was just such a genuine guy, and I shook his hand, and had a quick chat with him. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m talking to one of the best golfers in the world. This is fantastic!\u2019 He\u2019s just such a good guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone here, it seems, has a Rory story. Bellied-up beer sippers at the cash-only Maypole Bar. The rental car attendant at Belfast City Airport, who asks why we\u2019re here and instantly jumps into the fine detail of a round he once played against the Grand Slam champion. The teachers at Rory\u2019s secondary school, Sullivan, remember well the shaggy-haired kid with big dreams and unprecedented talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cRory\u2019s story shows people that with dedication and hard work, they can get somewhere,\u201d Sullivan golf organizer Andy Cave said, as his students peeked curiously from the hallway, through the small square windows in the door at this odd American camera crew sitting at the desks in their history class. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t need to be from a hugely privileged background. And I think the fact that he\u2019s done that, but then also that he remembers those people that helped him to get to where he is, is something which should inspire a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
This includes \u201cThe Girls,\u201d a collective moniker Gerry bestowed on them, a fivesome of ladies who convene often for glasses of wine and golf rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember once when we were sitting having a meal in the restaurant, and we were looking down on the 18th green, and Rory was there with a number of his friends chipping onto the green — and of course, not allowed to do that,\u201d chuckled Eileen Patterson. \u201cGerry never said anything, but he disappeared. He realized that [Rory] was breaking the rules, and he didn\u2019t try and make a difference for Rory. He took away the clubs for 10 days. That was the worst thing that could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy\u2019s presence is everywhere here. Ball markers, towels, even the Wi-Fi password (sorry guys, might have to change it now). After he secured the Grand Slam, fans from across the globe flocked to experience it. So many, in fact, the club added a Rory Tour.<\/p>\n
On a glorious Friday morning, I met lady captain Watt at the Holywood entrance to take in the tour. She pointed out the names of generations of McIlroys on the Club Champion placard, myriad photographs from Rory\u2019s youth, and replica trophies from three of Rory\u2019s major championships. Representing The Masters title was an autographed yellow Augusta pin flag.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be lovely to have a miniature of the Augusta clubhouse, but I believe that\u2019s not done,\u201d Watt said. \u201cWhen he won the Masters was magical. The clubhouse was just electric for days. Really and truly. It was a late night here, after midnight, whenever it was finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cTears were first. Because after dropping all those shots and getting to a playoff, which we never expected. We thought he was just going to sail through. But that\u2019s golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the most stressful 5\u00bd hours of my life,\u201d Cave said. \u201cMidway through the round, he kind of pulled away a little bit — and we were almost believing.\u201d<\/p>\n
THAT SUNDAY, PAIRED once again alongside DeChambeau, McIlroy walked to the 13th tee with a two-stroke lead. Following a quality tee shot and a precise second shot, McIlroy was 86 yards from the pin, with Rae\u2019s Creek guarding the green in front of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I let my guard down, but maybe relaxed a little bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His third shot landed short and shot back into the water. He carded a double bogey, opening the door for the competition. That included Justin Rose, who, up ahead, would ultimately card a 66. (Rose later surmised that that Sunday at Augusta may have been the best round of his life).<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 13, it helped me snap back into the mindset of, \u2018nope, you\u2019ve not won this yet,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cYou are nowhere close to winning this, yet. I snapped back into not letting myself think that I was going to win the Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n
He would bogey the 14th to hand Rose the outright lead. Then on 15, he pulled his drive left, setting up one of the greatest golf shots of his life. Facing a daunting right to left draw around a row of Georgia pines, McIlroy held an 8-iron. The wind picked up, and after DeChambeau hit his shot in the water, McIlroy adjusted to a 7-iron. The ball moved high and left, landing quickly on the green and rolling out to 6 feet. CBS\u2019 Jim Nantz enthusiastically called it \u201cthe shot of a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n
A birdie at 17 on the strength of a blistered approach shot meant McIlroy walked to the 18th tee as the outright leader. He missed a par putt just under the hole and scored a bogey, setting up a playoff with Rose. He walked off the 18th green and kissed his wife, Erica, and daughter, Poppy, and strode to the clubhouse stone-faced through thousands of screaming patrons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe roller coaster of the shot on 15, the shot on 17, a five in regulation on the last,\u201d McIlroy remembered earlier this year at Bay Hill, slouching a bit in the chair. \u201cAnd that time between signing your card and getting back to the 18th tee. I had a big wait on 18, Justin Rose, the whole thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to work hard on staying present and not listening to the roars up ahead of, like, what does that mean? What did he do? Looking at the leaderboard. I\u2019m really proud of myself, just staying in my own little — my own little world.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a golf cart ride back to the 18th tee for the playoff, McIlroy\u2019s caddie and best friend, Harry Diamond (whose 2002 Ulster Boys Championship photograph adorns the wall at Holywood as well) said simply, \u201cWell, pal, we\u2019d have taken this on Monday morning.\u201d It was a mental reset McIlroy needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I look back at that day, and everything that I had to go through, I\u2019m proudest of myself because I didn\u2019t let the moment get to me, either way, if that makes sense?\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
In the playoff, McIlroy was brilliant. He stuffed the approach to 3 feet, then walked up the 18th fairway to raucous cheers of \u201cRor-y! Ror-y!\u201d Rose narrowly pushed his birdie putt. McIlroy made his to finally earn the title: Masters champion.<\/p>\n
When the putt dropped, McIlroy tossed his putter into the air, began to weep and fell to his knees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe release was my expectations, everyone else\u2019s expectations, the narrative that had been built around me at that golf tournament for 15 years,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd remembering who I was as a little boy in Holywood, with this dream and making it a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
IN THAT MOMENT, the folks back in Holywood were partying and cheering and sobbing right along with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is emotional, because he\u2019s one of us,\u201d Denvir said. \u201cBorn and bred in Holywood. If you think about the size of this country, it\u2019s s a tiny country. Holywood\u2019s a very small place. And his whole family, they\u2019re just so down to Earth. They\u2019re just normal, down-to-Earth people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Tullin nodded with his pint.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just does feel like it\u2019s one of us. We\u2019ve not done it, but certainly to be associated with what he\u2019s achieved is amazing for this golf club and for the town and the country,\u201d Tullin said. \u201cRory is just Rory. He\u2019ll not change. He comes up and he talks to everybody. He gives everybody time. And he\u2019s very generous to the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the countless donated clubs, bags, flags and trophies, the sterling example of McIlroy\u2019s generosity is the state-of-the-art workout facility he donated, complete with five golf simulators, three of which include Trackman shot data technology. The gym created a new revenue stream for the club. As Ruth Watt explained, dozens of new members joined HGC just to use the workout room. Meanwhile, the sim room allows members to congregate for nine-hole rounds when the weather outside is sour.<\/p>\n
The prevailing guestimate by members at Holywood Golf Club is that McIlroy gave \u00a3750,000 (nearly $1 million) of his own money to help build the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all love Rory, and we\u2019re very, very proud of him,\u201d Helena Campbell, one of The Girls, said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s brought such a name to Holywood Golf Club and to Holywood itself. There\u2019s not a person in Holywood [who] wouldn\u2019t speak well of Rory McIlroy and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Days after Scottie Scheffler ceremonially placed the green jacket across his back, McIlroy boarded a private jet with Poppy and brought it home to Holywood. His parents, who Rory explained were busy moving into a new home in Ireland, weren\u2019t in attendance to see their only child walk into history at Augusta.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just desperately wanted to see my folks, just to give them a hug, just to show them the jacket,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI wanted to share it with them. I wanted to celebrate it with them. As I get a little bit older in my life — and I\u2019m a parent now — you sort of see your parents\u2019 mortality a little bit more. And appreciation and the gratitude I had that they were still on this planet, on this Earth to see what I had done, that meant a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
From mum, there were \u201cloads of tears.\u201d \u201cWith my dad, it\u2019s a little bit different,\u201d he laughed. \u201cHe\u2019s a 66-year-old man that tries to keep stuff in. But when I come into their house and I\u2019ve got the green jacket there, his whole face and his eyes just lit up. It was very, very emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right before we chatted in March, McIlroy took Gerry back to Augusta to play a round with Chairman Fred Ridley. It feels different now. It feels earned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that I never felt accepted, but I just felt a little more accepted,\u201d McIlroy said with a laugh. \u201cI think there is a different feeling when you go back there and you are a past champion, and they present you with your green jacket as you walk into the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you can go upstairs to your locker, and change your shoes. I just feel like I\u2019m a little more a part of the club, which is an amazing feeling I\u2019ll be able to cherish for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back at Holywood, while \u201cconducting market research,\u201d I ordered a(nother) pint of Guinness. And listened. As I watched the sandy froth dive and the chocolatey brew rise in the glass, laughter and pride pervaded. Rory stories. Joy for time together at twilight, reliving a day immersed in the adoration and addiction of hitting a small white ball around a field sometimes.<\/p>\n
And it was beautiful.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gives us so much to hope, because golf is our thing and he\u2019s the one putting us out there on the international stage,\u201d Callum McGreevy, a young Irishman sitting on the first tee at Holywood, said in a setting sun. \u201cIt\u2019s just amazing to see that it\u2019s possible coming from such a small country to do so much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOLYWOOD, Northern Ireland — Tucked away on a steep hillside high above County Down, overlooking Belfast Lough, sits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[156332,49,48,622,223314,119053,6987,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-584087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-augusta-national","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-holywood-golf-club","13":"tag-masters","14":"tag-northern-ireland","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}