On Sunday afternoon, as Rory McIlroy scripted another wild chapter in his major-championship record, an avid golf fan, watching from his couch in Virginia, realized that he should do some writing of his own.
Timothy Gay is the Pulitzer-nominated author of four books, including, most recently, “Rory Land: The Up and Down World of Golf’s Global Icon,” a biography of the newly minted Masters champ that Gay completed before the Masters.
Copies of the book had been proof-read, printed and hard-cover bound in time for a scheduled May 13 release.
That’s still the plan.
But Sunday’s drama at Augusta was a plot twist too dramatic to ignore.
Gay knew that the book would need an update.
“As soon as Rory’s putt dropped and I could compose myself, I was texting my editorial team, volunteering to write a new epilogue,” Gay told GOLF.com.
By Wednesday, he’d typed out his addendum, a recap — and assessment — of McIlroy’s Grand Slam-clinching win, which will be included in the UK and Ireland editions of the book, as well as in digital versions and U.S. reprints. The new section builds on a sweeping story Gay tells of McIlroy’s life on and off the course, an intense public existence that began, Tiger Woods-like, with an early childhood appearance on national TV. Placing its global superstar in a broader context, Gay traces McIlroy’s lineage through generations leading up to the Troubles, which left direct scars on the McIlroy family and still roiled the country during Rory’s formative years. Later, of course, came the civil war in golf itself, in which McIlroy played a prominent role.
One of the themes in “Rory Land” is that McIlroy’s uneven play in major championships — and shifting stances in the PGA Tour/LIV battle — stems partly from his tumultuous personal and professional experiences. In golf and life, he has been something of “a man without a country,” pulled to the point of strain by opposing forces.
The book also explores a paradox of McIlroy’s popularity, which — along with his immense talent — has derived from his approachability, an admirable trait that has also been a vulnerability. McIlroy’s most painful failures in competition, Gay argues, are hard to separate from his failures to keep the outside world at bay. (That there are limits to the Ulsterman’s openness is reflected by the fact that McIlroy did not grant Gay an interview, and his camp encouraged others to do the same.)
In that sense, McIlroy’s mistake-marked march to Masters triumph looked like more of the same — “Roller Coaster Rory,” as Gay puts it. But it was also a watershed, the end to a long major-championship drought that — who knows? — could unleash a flood of additional wins.
Golf is a notoriously fickle game, tricky to predict.
But “Rory Land” gets one big prediction right.
In the book’s closing passage, written months ago, Gay imagines a scenario where McIlroy wins his next major and his close friend and countryman Shane Lowry is there to celebrate with him.
The new epilogue, penned this week, details that imagined scene made real.
