Rory McIlroy was understandably emotional when talking about how much winning a record-tying eighth Race to Dubai title meant to “a proud European.”
But it was a question about his father, Gerry, that choked up the 37-year-old.
DP World Tour reporter Tim Barter asked a victorious McIlroy, “You father is recovering from health issues over in America. How much was he in your thoughts today?”
“A lot,” McIlroy responded, rubbing the side of his face, his voice becoming shaky. “Yeah, a lot.”
“He’s been in the hospital for the last two months. Underwent a huge operation at the end of September and he’s recovering well, thankfully,” McIlroy added.
“When I left to come up here to the Middle East, I went up to Cleveland to see him and he said to me, ‘Go win the Race to Dubai.’ And uh …”
With that, McIlroy tried his best to not break down and Barter helped him by saying how proud Gerry would be of his son, and ending the interview.
“Yeah,” McIlroy said, “this one’s for him.”
After receiving his eighth RTD trophy, tying him with Colin Montgomerie on the all-time list, McIlroy went deeper during his full-media press conference on his father’s condition.
“It’s obviously been difficult. I mean, he’s been living with this for a while, for 18 months, and it got to the point where the last resort was he needed a transplant. So he had a double-lung transplant in September. Thankfully, operation was a success and he’s recovering well,” McIlroy said.
“Yeah, it’s been a stressful time for our family. I’ve been up in Cleveland a lot because that’s where he is. I didn’t know if I was going to go to India because I spent nine days in the ICU with him while he was recovering. You know, if things were not looking as good as they were, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable travelling or being too far away.
“But he’s got an amazing team up there, and the doctors and nurses are absolutely incredible. So I felt comfortable going to India and travelling and knowing that I could obviously get back to him if I needed to, but he was obviously in wonderful hands.
“He’s been making a really steady recovery. I went up to see him before I left for Abu Dhabi a couple of weeks ago, and he said to me, ‘Rors, go and win me the Race to Dubai.’
“So that was, you know — that was in my head for the last two weeks, and I really wanted to do it for him and I know he’s in hospital in his hospital bed, and he would have been watching this morning. It was nice to be able to get it done for him.”