Rory McIlroy was a special guest on the Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast this week, and his picks for the ‘Mount Rushmore’ of golf courses went down a treat.
The two-time Masters champion appeared on Wednesday’s edition of New Heights, one of the biggest sports podcasts in the world.
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Both Super Bowl winners, Jason and Travis have been podcasting since 2022, when both were still active NFL players (Jason has since retired). The show’s profile has only risen since Travis’ romantic relationship with Taylor Swift began in 2023.
McIlroy was a suitably blockbuster guest, then, and the hosts were eager to get his picks for the best golf courses in the world. There was an Irish course among his selection.
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Rory McIlroy’s Royal County Down pick
(The discussion on McIlroy’s ‘Mount Rushmore’ comes at around the 1:17:00 mark)
On this week’s New Heights, the Kelce brothers asked Rory McIlroy to pick his ‘Mount Rushmore’ of golf courses, a familiar term in sports vernacular to describe a top four in a certain category.
Evidently, the famed monument of US Presidents is not McIlroy’s specialist topic, as he was forced to clarify how many courses he could pick, prompting the Kelces to burst into laughter.
“We’ve never asked that to somebody not from America, that’s so good!” joked Travis.
McIlroy put plenty of thought into his selection, though, and would eventually go for a worldwide selection that included a famed favourite of his close to home.
Okay, I would say…it’s hard.
I’ll go four different places. I’ll go Kingston Heath in Australia.
I would go Royal County Down in Northern Ireland.
I would do Pine Valley on the East Coast, and then I would do Cypress Point on the West Coast.
That’s so hard because I’m leaving out so many great golf courses, it’s hard to do four. But those would be the four off the top of my head.
A mighty fine selection.
“I’ll take that. You just took us around the world, that’s pretty dope,” Travis replied.
“You’ve got four that I haven’t fuckin’ played, so I’m excited to try all four!”
Royal County Down has always been among McIlroy’s favourite courses, with the six-time major champion playing regularly on the world-renowned links course when growing up just outside Belfast.
He lost out on the 2024 Irish Open in agonising fashion at the course, finishing just a single shot behind champion Rasmus Hojgaard.
The Kelces are big fans of Ireland, with both brothers travelling for the NFL game in Croke Park last September, and for Taylor Swift’s concert in the Aviva Stadium the previous June.
Jason Kelce would go on to celebrate the nation’s golfing culture, which he experienced while visiting for the NFL’s Croke Park takeover.
“The golf culture there is incredible,” Jason Kelce said.
“I was there, actually, with Bill Murray. One of the things that he pointed out was that in Ireland a lot of the caddies actually belong and are members of the courses. It just felt more like a communal vibe the entire time when I was out there. Spectacular.”
McIlroy would respond with one thing he believes sets Ireland apart from the US in that regard.
There’s no real purely private golf courses. It’s all a blend of public and private, they’re all like semi-private.
So you have memberships, but they’re also open to the public at certain times of the day at certain tee times.
It’s certainly, I feel, a better way to do it, and it’s definitely more accessible.
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