<p>Masters champion Rory McIlroy in his moment of triumph last year. Picture: Augusta National</p>
It's easy to forget that modern sporting superstars are mini-corporations employing dozens of people whose sole function is to serve the boss and keep the show on the road.
In the case of Rory McIlroy, quickly closing in on billionaire status, 30 employees (and business partner/manager Séan O'Flaherty) work hard to help an elite athlete perform and maintain his image while simultaneously satisfying the needs of blue-chip sponsors.
At the age of 36, it might seem a tad early for a McIlroy biography, given the Holywood man may have another decade of elite golf ahead of him.
But last year's Masters win was such a great story that Alan Shipnuck's publisher insisted he get typing. Fast.
The result, "Rory - The Heartache and Triumph of Golf's Most Human Superstar" (Simon & Schuster, €17.99), hits the bookshops this week, and it is neither a hatchet job nor a hagiography but a sympathetic portrait of a complex superstar.
It's also unauthorised, which is no surprise given that one of Shipnuck's most recent efforts is an explosive and devastating biography of Phil Mickelson.
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<p>"Rory - The Heartache and Triumph of Golf's Most Human Superstar"</p>
Shipnuck quoted the six-time major winner, now with the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League, describing the Saudi regime as "scary motherfuckers to get involved with... We know they killed [Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay."
To say McIlroy was cagey about the prospect of being the subject of Shipnuck's latest book would be an understatement.
When he spotted him talking to O'Flaherty during last year's US Open at Oakmont, he told him to "fuck off" because he found his presence distracting as he warmed up on the range.
They later spoke in the Oakmont car park, and McIlroy made it clear that he had a problem with the book.
"You fucked Phil," McIlroy said.
"Actually," Shipnuck replied, "Phil fucked himself."
McIlroy retorted, "I'm not going to make the same mistake."
He added: "It pisses me off that you're making money off my name."
Fair enough, there was to be no co-operation on the project, but Shipnuck was not surprised, given what he perceives as the Co Down man's desire for full control.
In a recent chat about his book, he explained that McIlroy initially passed on what became the recently launched Amazon documentary until he could produce it himself.
"I know a lot of talented Hollywood people pitched Rory," Shipnuck told me. "And ultimately he went with his own production company because he wanted control.”
The former Sports Illustrated scribe describes the resulting two-hour film as "very safe and very predictable and almost a little boring" and suspects an authorised biography will eventually come out because McIlroy has been "banking interviews with people around him for some kind of book project in the future."
As for this tome, McIlroy read Chapter One, shook the author's hand publicly and said: "It was good. It made me laugh."
Those looking for "dirt" on McIlroy's now resolved marital problems will be left disappointed, though Shipnuck has fun with the rumours surrounding his late arrival for his singles at the 2012 Ryder Cup, where he first met his future wife.
McIlroy's camp blamed a time zone mix-up, but tournament officials received a winking emoji when they texted a colleague who worked alongside Erica Stoll.
McIlroy's manager "declined to discuss any aspect of his boss's personal life."
Reporters who have spent two decades following McIlroy will be 'au fait' with McIlroy's decision to leave Chubby Chandler's ISM and go to boutique Irish agency Horizon Sports, run by Conor Ridge and Colin Morrissey, with O'Flaherty a lower-level employee.
Lee Westwood treated McIlroy "like a pesky little brother,” Shipnuck writes. He was making "little comments that were funny but a bit harsh," says former ISM man Stuart Cage.
A row over commissions led to McIlroy taking Ridge and Co to court, though O'Flaherty—the same man Ridge once grabbed by the scruff of the neck in front of Shipnuck and asked, "Have you ever seen a more punchable face?"—remained loyal and joined Rory McIlroy Inc.
Some of the more interesting takes on McIlroy come from Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley.
"The thing about Rory, he's quite stubborn," McGinley says. "And he has a heightened sense of justice. If he feels he has been wronged, he won't give an inch."
McGinley also notes that McIlroy "rarely gives praise to anybody around him. He has a very high sense of his value. He feels like, I'm the guy who does the donkey work out there—nobody else is allowed to take any praise off my back."
That said, McGinley also admires McIlroy's unswerving loyalty to his team.
"When it goes wrong, he never throws anybody else under the bus. You ever heard him criticise anybody around him? He has ownership of everything."
Harrington clearly admires McIlroy's winning mentality, comparing it to a penalty shootout in soccer.
"I would choose five players to take those penalties who want to score over five players who don't want to miss," Harrington says. "It's a different mentality.
"The players who aren't afraid to score might very well miss the target completely, but they are also the ones who are going to win you the game. The problem is, in a high-pressure situation, if a player misses the goal, he's the one who's hung out in the papers the next day.
"Whereas if another player hits an average penalty kick and it's saved, he doesn't get hung out—we celebrate the keeper! So it's safer to try an average kick than to try to be extraordinary, but you're going to win a lot less. I think it's pretty obvious which personality Rory is."
Unlike Woods or Mickelson—"consumed by their vices and addictions, drenched in scandal"—Shipnuck ultimately loves that McIlroy shows "an incredible gratitude for this life" and successfully walks the tightrope between "ruthless control" and being a genuinely decent person.
As the book's subtitle suggests, golf's most human superstar remains endlessly fascinating.
Article Link: "Rory" and the price of control - News - Irish Golf Desk