Rory McIlory
Residence: Holywood, northern Ireland
DOB: 04/05/1989
Where do we start? This young man has achieved enough in his short career to fill reams and reams of pages. But I’ll try my hardest to keep it short. McIlroy was born in Holywood, Northern Ireland and started his early training with Michael Bannon who is still his coach and dedicated mentor.
McIlroy was a member of Europe's winning 2004 Junior Ryder Cup team. In 2005 he became the youngest ever winner of both the West of Ireland Championship and the Irish Close Championship. He retained the West of Ireland Championship in 2006 and followed that up with back to back wins at the Irish Close Championship. In August 2006 he won the European Amateur Championship.
On 6 February 2007 he topped the World Amateur Golf Rankings, though he lost the top spot after just one week. McIlroy made his first appearance in a European Tour event a few days after turning sixteen, when he took part in the 2005 British Masters. He made the cut on the European Tour for the first time as a seventeen year old at the 2007 Dubai Desert Classic, where he had to forego prize money of over €7,600 due to his amateur status.
Rory turned professional in September 2007 and before the close of the season has earned enough to gain full playing rights for the 2008 season.
In September 2008 McIlory took a four shot lead into the final round of the Omega European Masters in Crans-Sur-Sierre, Switzerland but finished in a tie for first place with Frenchman Jean-François Lucquin after missing a four foot putt for par at the 18th hole in regulation that would have given him the outright victory. At the second extra hole Rory missed from a foot to give the Frenchman victory.
2009 got off to a great start for the youngster - probably thinking that if things were the same as last season then that would be great. However before he knew it he had won his first European Tour event. A single shot victory over Justin rose gave him the win at the Dubai Desert Classic.
Rory McIlory Club History
Below is a selection of clubs used by Rory McIlory throughout his career
Rory McIlory Tournament History
2009 World Golf Championship - CA Championship |
12-15 March 2009 - Doral Golf and Spa Resort - Phil Mickelson won his first World Golf Championships title on Sunday at the CA Championship, where he held off Nick Watney to take the title by one stroke and his 36th career victory. However this was perhaps not the most news worthy story of the week. During his opening round, Henrik Stenson thought it a good idea to play from out of the water! After stripping down to his boxer shorts the Swede preceded to do just this. And it was down to PGA Tour photographer Kyle Auclair to capture this magical moment. With the world’s best golf photographers trailing Tiger Woods, Kyle decided he was going to follow other players instead. Little did he know this particular sequence of images would be plastered on newspapers, websites and television shows all over the country the next day. |
In Rory McIlory's bag...It was only rounds of 72 and 73 over the weekend that stopped Rory from challenging for a yet another title in 2009. After opening round of 68 followed by a stunning 66 on the Friday Rory was in a great position going in to the closing rounds. However he could not carry his for though to the weekend and fell away toward the close of play - eventually finishing up in a tie for 20th place. We’ve got the complete set of images of Rory this week. From the bag shot we can see Rory is a Titleist man through and through. I few look at the shot of him with his driver we can identify it as a Titleist 909 D2. Going back to the image of the bag we can see a Titleist 909 F2 to accompany the driver. From the shot of him with his iron we can see that his is using the Titleist Z Muscle Forged model. He is also using a Titleist Vokey Spin Milled Wedge as well as a Vokey prototype. His putter is a Scotty Cameron prototype.
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO SEE FULL SIZE VERSION). |
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