In search of Rory McIlroy

“When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer. Eric Bristow’s only 27.” So said Sid Waddell of the five-time darts world champion Bristow.

It is now tempting to think in similar terms of Rory McIlroy. Last year the Northern Irish golfer completed the sport’s career “grand slam” – winning the four majors of the Open, US Open, PGA Championship and the Masters – when he finally triumphed in the latter in Augusta. The win was McIlroy’s first major title in 11 years and concluded a “will he, won’t he” storyline that had plagued him – and his fans – since 2014.

Only six male players have achieved golf’s grand slam. McIlroy is the only European to do so, achieving something even the late, great Seve Ballesteros could not. The received wisdom is that McIlroy, now 36, has finally conquered golf. A good time, then, to assess the man behind the magnificence.

The difficulty is that, as Alan Shipnuck writes in Rory, his new biography of the golfer, McIlroy has “near-total dominion over his image”. A documentary released last month about his 2025 Masters victory was produced in conjunction with McIlroy’s own production house.

Shipnuck’s book gets us a bit closer to the truth. It is a portrait of a man who, partly through design, partly through bloody-mindedness, always seemed destined for greatness. At nine years old he was interviewed by the BBC and said he “wanted to win all the majors”. The following year he was invited on the The Kelly Show to show off his party trick of chipping golf balls into a washing machine. When Rory was 15, his father, Gerry, placed a £200 bet with a bookmaker that his son would win a major before the age of 25 at odds of 500-1 (he won his first, the US Open, aged 22). Even his school blazer had the Gaelic motto Lámh Foisdineach An Uachtar (“with the gentle hand foremost”), which feels a bit on the nose for a boy who would become one of golf’s all‑time greats.

McIlroy has been in the public eye for the best part of two decades and has been vulnerable to that immense weight of expectation. Shipnuck correctly identifies that golf is “littered with awesome physical talents whose careers were torpedoed by emotional fragility, lack of mental toughness, and metaphysical turmoil”. The renowned golfer Bobby Jones said golf is “played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course – the space between your ears”. There is a bleak story of an 18-year-old McIlroy crying at the end of his hotel bed during a competition in South Korea with just a tube of Pringles for company. It was, Shipnuck says, not his last existential crisis.

McIlroy’s famed impetuousness – in business, on dealings with the press, in relationships – gets a thorough examination throughout the book. He dumped former tennis world No 1 Caroline Wozniacki in 2014 “in a conversation so abrupt she thought it was a joke”; in 2024 he filed for divorce from his wife of seven years, Erica Stoll, before performing a U-turn within a month. “The recklessness is part of what makes him appealing. He’s a complicated human, like the rest of us,” Shipnuck writes.

Salacious? Perhaps. And at times this book feels like one for Rory McIlroy completists – of which there are many around the world – but not the casual reader. McIlroy is arguably Britain’s greatest sportsman of the 21st century, but would arguably struggle to have the mass recognition of Sirs Lewis Hamilton, Andy Murray or Mo Farah.

But he is a celebrity’s celebrity. There aren’t many others who would receive congratulatory calls from both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, as McIlroy did, after winning the Masters. Coldplay’s Chris Martin, One Direction’s Niall Horan and the actor Jamie Dornan attended his wedding; Stevie Wonder and Ed Sheeran flew in to provide the music. “He is not just the real deal… he is real. And perhaps that is what makes him even more cherished,” wrote Meghan Markle in a blog post in 2014.

But celebrity and the fact he is en route to becoming a billionaire are largely irrelevant when you strip McIlroy back to what matters: his supreme ability. Shipnuck writes best about the golf. Is it justified to have 462 words devoted purely to one shot – McIlroy’s seven-iron on the 15th at last year’s Masters? Yes, it is, because it was one of the greatest shots in history. Do I want to read about all the reasons he changed to the TaylorMade TP5 ball? I discover that I do.

How McIlroy became the player of conscience among golf’s bitter civil war over the LIV Golf breakaway league is explored in detail. As is McIlroy’s background in Northern Ireland. The golfer’s great-uncle was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries from the Ulster Defence Association. He chose to play for Ireland not Britain at the Olympics, while perhaps finding his tightest loyalties playing for the European Ryder Cup team.

McIlroy’s evolution from the wild-haired, doughy-faced boy from Belfast’s Holywood to all-conquering golfing deity inevitably creates that desire to know who the “real” Rory is. The question this book leaves you with is: does he know himself?

Rory: The Heartache and Triumph of Golf’s Most Human Superstar by Alan Shipnuck is published by Simon & Schuster (£25). Order a copy from The Observer Shop for £22.50. Delivery charges may apply

Photograph by Maddie Meyer/PGA of America via Getty Images