Martin Dempster: Give Rory McIlroy a break

IT HAPPENED around a decade ago, yet I can still vividly remember the last time I was guilty of throwing a golf club on the course.
Rory McIlroy has been criticised in some quarters for losing his temper. Picture: GettyRory McIlroy has been criticised in some quarters for losing his temper. Picture: Getty
Rory McIlroy has been criticised in some quarters for losing his temper. Picture: Getty

After splitting the fairway with my drive at the par-5 11th at The Carrick on Loch Lomond, I then duffed the second into a bunker and let my frustration boil over after taking a couple of shots to escape from there. Before raking the bunker, my club was sent flying through the air in the direction of the bag, which it clattered into with a good old thump.

At the time, I was editor of Scotland’s only golf magazine and my playing partners certainly didn’t miss the opportunity to wind me up about them having ammunition to send in letters to the said publication pointing out that it was inappropriate for someone in such a position to be acting in that manner on a golf course.

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They were right – and I regret that incident along with another one that resulted in the head of a rake falling off after I’d returned it to terra firma with too much force following a Hamlet moment in a bunker at Taymouth Castle – but, seriously, is there anyone out there who hasn’t done something on a golf course that is out of character?

It’s a difficult game; it’s a frustrating one. Add those two factors together and the result is that normally mild-mannered people – and I’d include myself in that category – do daft things when they are supposed to be enjoying themselves out in the fresh air.

It was a daft thing Rory McIlroy did when he tossed his 3-iron around 50 yards into the lake during the second round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship on the Blue Monster at Doral in Miami. There is absolutely no need, though, for us to worry about his position as the game’s main role model being tarnished by that incident.

For starters, the 25-year-old was immediately self-deprecating. He knew he shouldn’t have done it, held up his hands and injected some humour as he was questioned about what had happened. It was exactly the way the matter needed to be handled, even though there has been whining from some of our American cousins about how the reaction would have been different if Tiger Woods had been at the centre of such an incident when he was world No 1.

Unlike Woods, McIlroy doesn’t have a history of inappropriate behaviour on the golf course. He doesn’t spit on greens and shows a more human side to youngsters – the ones who need to be influenced at a time when the game is fighting with other sports and pastimes more than ever – than Woods has done at any time in his career.

I’m not saying Rory is an angel. He’s made mistakes and will make more in years to come. It’s nonsense to suggest, though, that what he did in a fit of pique on Friday is harmful for golf. If you are going to throw a club, then into water is surely the best place, providing, of course, you don’t want it back and, unlike McIlroy, won’t have a diver retrieving it and having it presented back to you a couple of days later by Donald Trump.

Rory knew he wasn’t endangering anyone by his response to seeing a shot at the eighth hole end up in the drink. His throwing action was as stylish as his swing. “Nice full release and extension down the line,” noted Lee Westwood. Less than 24 hours later, the PGA Tour’s video clip of the incident had clocked up more than 231,000 views, which compared to 50,000 combined for the other 19 it posted that day.

I’m not condoning what McIlroy did because we can’t see golf turned into a game where clubs are being tossed here, there and everywhere without anyone batting an eyelid. The point I’m trying to make is that we can all understand, surely, how it happened and, therefore, he shouldn’t be crucified for it.

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“The most exquisitely satisfying act in the world of golf,” the legendary Henry Longhurst once wrote. “The full backswing, the delayed wrist action, the flowing follow through, followed by that unique whirring sound, reminiscent only of a passing flock of starlings, are without parallel in sport.”

It’s at times like these that such humour has to be applied because our great game is too often way too serious. No damage has been done by McIlroy, either to his own image or the game’s in general. Whether we like it or not, the occasional club throwing is part and parcel of the sport.

And, if you are the next in line to feel that way inclined, then remember this advice from arguably the game’s most famous temper tantrum exponent, Tommy Bolt: “Always throw the clubs ahead of you, that way you won’t waste any energy going back to pick them up!”

Going behind Area officials’ backs a bad move

Scottish golf may be about to achieve its much-publicised merger, but it’s bitterly disappointing that there seems to be a luck of trust in the men’s Area associations by the Scottish Golf Union.

That’s the only conclusion this correspondent can come up with after contemplating why the SGU commissioned an independent poll of Scottish golf clubs before the 16 Areas deliver the decisive vote at the end of this month. Yes,

it was the Areas which stopped the proposal going through at the first time of asking four years ago, but they did so because, in their eyes, the proposal on the table wasn’t right for Scottish golf.

In truth, there are aspects of the new one that still don’t tick every box, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that, with better communication on this occasion, the Area associations would deliver the “yes” vote that is anticipated at an EGM at the end of this month.

Yet, in what can only be likened to doing something behind one’s back – even though we all knew about it – the SGU decided to go straight to the clubs to get their vote and, sure enough, the proposal has received overwhelming support.

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That’s great, but what I didn’t like about the press release on it was that it made reference to the fact that “across all 16 Areas of the country, there was endorsement of the proposal”. In effect, that was the SGU telling the Areas that their vote should be 16-0 in favour of the move and it may well be.

It is a disgrace, however, that intelligent men are trying to be told what is expected of them. Forget anything you’ve heard about “blazered bufties” trying to hold on to their own bit of power. In the 30 or so years that I’ve had the pleasure of covering Scottish golf, I’ve hardly come across a single Area official who was involved in the sport to satisfy their own needs.

They give up their time to help run local events, ferry players to matches and, generally, play a key role in the sport at grass-roots level. We should be embracing these people as part of the unified body, not alienating them.

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