Neither Rory McIlroy nor his manager Sean O’Flaherty were overly thrilled when Alan Shipnuck told them that he was writing McIlroy’s biography. Phil Mickelson hadn’t come out too well from Shipnuck’s 2022 book on his story, not least because of the revelations about the American’s gambling habits and his comments on the Saudi-backed LIV.
O’Flaherty was, then, wary when Shipnuck broached the possibility of an interview with McIlroy for the book, but he became more enthusiastic when told it would be pitched on the player’s “burgeoning business empire”. O’Flaherty said he would put the idea to McIlroy.
Some time after, Shipnuck was chatting to O’Flaherty when they met at last year’s US Open. “Hey, Alan,” he heard someone call from nearby. “I looked up and McIlroy was staring me down. His eyes were slits and his face twisted into a scowl. As soon as we made eye contact, he growled, ‘f**k off’. McIlroy took a couple of steps toward us and pointed his driver at me. ‘Seriously, f**k off.’”
Shipnuck had, he says, “experienced the different sides of McIlroy”, but this episode left him taken aback. He decided to approach McIlroy after the final round and ask why he was so bothered by the book. Two reasons. “You f**ked Phil … I’m not going to make the same mistake.” And, “it p**ses me off that you’re making money off my name”.
There ended any hope of an interview, but Shipnuck wasn’t too concerned. Besides, “collaborative biographies skew toward the bland and sanitised”. He continued with the project. His sole goal, he says, was “to provide an unvarnished answer to an old question … what’s Rory really like?”
“And that is my challenge as a biographer,” says Shipnuck, the writer who has specialised in golf since taking up an internship with Sports Illustrated 30 years ago. “People know the broad strokes of Rory’s life by now,” he said when we spoke this week on the eve of the publication of ‘Rory: The Heartache and Triumph of Golf’s Most Human Superstar’. “He’s been in the public eye for almost two decades. My job was to tell people things they don’t know, to give a deeper understanding of this incredible journey.”
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts on the fifth green during the first round of the Travelers Championship 2025 at TPC River Highlands on June 19, 2025 in Cromwell, Connecticut. Photograph: Alex Goodlett/Getty Images
“Rory has this huge life on and off the golf course, and he’s become a global icon. He has a business empire that few people even really know about. He dropped out of school when he was 15, now his closest confidants are JP McManus, Dermot Desmond and Jimmy Dunne, these titans of the business world. And he moves very easily in those circles. So it’s been quite a remarkable journey, not just on the golf course, but through life.”
“But his appeal is, I think, that deep down he’s still this kid from the suburbs of Belfast who grew up in a working-class family. And he’s retained that humility, that sense of wonder about how far he’s travelled in his life. Deep down he’s never really changed. And, and I think that’s what makes him compelling to a lot of people.”
Few, he says, have summed up McIlroy better than Paul McGinley when he said “Rory is very complicated, and in some ways he’s very simple”.
“I totally agree with that – and that’s part of what drew me to this project. Rory is becoming more interesting. He’s becoming more polarising, and he’s becoming more complex as he gets older. I would say five years ago he was a universally beloved figure, but he certainly stirs more passion in people now.”
Masters champion Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland speaks during the Green Jacket Ceremony at Augusta National Golf Club, Sunday, April 13, 2025. Photograph: Shanna Lockwood/Augusta National/Getty Images
“That dates from the arrival of LIV golf and him becoming this very outspoken critic. He became a kind of troll who made it personal with Greg Norman, with Sergio Garcia, with Brooks Koepka and others. A lot of people respected him for taking on this fight, but I think he lost some fans as well. But Rory was following his heart and his conscience. He’s passionate. You see it on the golf course, you see it in the way he takes on these issues. So yeah, it’s what makes him such a compelling figure for a biography because he’s complex. There’s a lot of layers there.”
There’s honesty, thoughtfulness, loyalty, kindness, generosity, but, Shipnuck notes, there have been episodes of petulance and ruthlessness too. The manner in which he ended some relationships down the years, whether with the women in his life, business partners, caddies, and so on, doesn’t paint him in the warmest of lights.
There’s been the odd bizarre moment too, which might leave jaws on the floor. JJ Spaun’s hopes of beating McIlroy in a playoff in last year’s Players Championship ended when he chose the wrong club and his ball landed in the water. When they crossed paths at the Masters the following month, McIlroy turned to the American and said: “Better get the club right this time.” “That hurt,” said Spaun after. “That hit me. Shane Lowry was like, ‘f**kin’ hell, Rory’.” He’s definitely complicated.
But it was at Augusta that Shipnuck witnessed a day he says will live forever in the memory, when McIlroy finally won the Masters.
“Rory was playing – no hyperbole – probably the best golf of his entire life. But on Sunday, it had very little to do with swinging the golf club. It was such a metaphysical battle. It was just these angels and demons on his shoulder, and that’s what made it so real.”
“We know he can hit every shot, that’s never been in question. And he hit some of the greatest shots in tournament history that day. And also some of the worst. It was just such an internal battle, and that’s what made it so thrilling. It was just quintessential Rory.”
“I was at every single major championship that Tiger Woods won, and it was thrilling to be a witness to history. But a lot of those Sundays were boring because you had the sense that Tiger would never, ever make a mistake and let anybody else win it. But with Rory? How many mistakes could he make? Was he gonna actually do it?”
Tiger Woods of Jupiter Links GC and Rory McIlroy of Boston Common Golf react on the sixth hole during a match at SoFi Center on March 01, 2026 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Photograph: Megan Briggs/TGL Golf via Getty Images
“I’ll never forget how many people were moved to tears. And that was because it wasn’t about golf. It was about those simple things, like overcoming your fears and never giving up. None of us can hit a golf ball like Rory, but we can certainly relate to that inner struggle, there’s something you want so much but you’re afraid to have.”
“That’s what’s thrilling about tournament golf, there’s absolutely nowhere to hide. You’re all alone out there, it’s like an x-ray of the soul. It was riveting.”
Woods, naturally enough, features heavily in the book, back to the days when McIlroy was in awe of him and had a poster of him on his bedroom wall, to when the pair became equals – and friends. That friendship has been tested along the way, not least by Woods being among a group of players in 2024 who reportedly blackballed McIlroy’s return to the PGA Tour board. But in yet another hour of need for Woods, will he reach out to McIlroy?
“I don’t think so, but I think Rory could reach out to Tiger and make a difference in his life. And I hope he does because Tiger clearly needs that mentorship. They’re definitely not as close as they have been, but I think Rory might be the only person on the planet who could go knock on Tiger’s door and tell him some hard truths – because they are equals, they are peers. And Tiger has a lot of respect for Rory, not just as a golfer, but by the way he has lived his life.”
“I honestly think if you could give Tiger truth serum and ask him if he would trade his life for Rory’s, he would do it in a heartbeat. Tiger might have more trophies, but Rory’s healthy, he’s happy and he’s universally respected.”
Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry of Ireland celebrate on the 18th green after winning the final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans at TPC Louisiana on April 28, 2024 in Avondale, Louisiana. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Another significant relationship McIlroy has developed along the way has been with Lowry. “And Shane is very important in Rory’s life. There’s been complexity in their relationship as well [due to McIlroy’s legal battle with Horizon Sports] but now, they’re in a great place. I don’t think Rory has any other close friends out on tour. He has a lot of acquaintances, every player respects and appreciates him, but I never see him practising with or having dinner with anyone else.”
“Shane is a world class player and he understands some of Rory’s struggles, but at the same time he’s known his whole life that Rory’s just better than he is. And so there’s no rivalry in that sense. Shane knows that Rory is Rory. He’s okay with that. And so it’s just a perfect dynamic.”
McIlroy is, Shipnuck believes, “more content” now than he has ever been. He had, he says, “an existential crisis” after he won the Masters, really only getting his love back for the game when he won the Irish Open at the K Club last year. He had spoken after Augusta about having climbed his Everest, but needing a new mountain to climb. But when there is no higher mountain, was he left thinking ‘what now?’
Rory McIlory at the Irish Amateur Open Championship in 2005. Photograph: Inpho/Tom Honan
“I think so, but that is probably understandable after you achieve a lifelong dream that was so drenched in emotion. Like any child prodigy, he has had these weight of expectations his whole life. They can crush you or they can inspire you, I think Rory’s felt both along the way. But I think winning the Masters redeemed him as a golfer and completed his journey. Then winning the Ryder Cup was a sort of public redemption for him as a man and as a husband.”
“He had an incredible embrace with Erica at the end of the Ryder Cup, after what had been a difficult year for both of them. The way he spoke about her in the press conference after was the most emotion he’s ever shown towards her publicly. The way everything worked out, it turned into the best year of his life on and off the golf course. So I think he’s in a great place in every way. And it’s nice to see that contentment because there was a restlessness about Rory for a long time.”
Will he read the book, do you think? “Well, that’s funny,” says Shipnuck.
It was a late Sunday night in California last February. Shipnuck was leaving the press room after writing up his report on the final round of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and heading for his car.
Rory: The Heartache and Triumph of Golf’s Most Human Superstar Hardcover by Alan Shipnuck.
“It’s now dark, it’s misty, the whole place is completely cleared out. I see two figures walking towards me in the darkness and I know instantly that one of them is Rory, just by the way he moves. Sure enough, it was him and his caddy, Harry Diamond, they were going to the lodge to get a meal. They were joking with me, ‘of all the people we had to meet on a dark rainy night, it had to be you’.”
“And Rory said, ‘I read the first chapter of the book’. He said it made me laugh, it was good. And you know, that chapter has some spicy material in it. I texted with his manager Sean O’Flaherty later, and he said Rory was still reading it. I didn’t write the book for Rory, I wrote it for golf fans, but it’s nice that he has good feelings about it. I’m pleased, I’ll say that.”
♦ Rory: The Heartache and Triumph of Golf’s Most Human Superstar Hardcover by Alan Shipnuck, is published by Simon and Schuster and released on Tuesday, April 7th