Rory McIlroy showed his true colours when he chased LIV Golf star Brooks Koepka through a car park to congratulate him on his fifth major victory at last year’s PGA Championship. Despite being on opposite sides of the golfing world, with McIlroy pledging his loyalty to the PGA Tour and Koepka switching to the Saudi-backed LIV in 2022, there was no bad blood between them.
Even though McIlroy had been very critical of the rival league and those who joined it, saying he would rather ‘retire’ than join LIV, he still congratulated Koepka. The moment was captured in the second season of Netflix‘s Full Swing docu-series.
“Brooks! Brooks! ” McIlroy is heard shouting as he ran towards Koepka in the car park. After catching his attention, they hugged and McIlroy said: “I am really happy for you.” They then went their separate ways, with Koepka telling McIlroy: “I’ll give you a shout man!”
Just a bit before, the star from Northern Ireland was spotted releasing his frustrations after missing out yet again on a big tournament. The last time McIlroy won a major was at the 2014 PGA Championship held in Valhalla, and it seemed like the long wait was taking a toll on his play.
As he chatted with his team in the locker room following last year’s competition, McIlroy’s words were: “My technique is nowhere near as good as it used to be… I almost feel like I want to do a complete reboot. It is the only way I feel like I’m going to break through. It feels so far away.
“I’m not at the stage of my life where I feel like I can do these two-week bootcamps. I feel good enough to be f****** top-ten in my head, but not good win, like winning f****** majors.” After all was said and done, at Oak Hill, McIlroy scored two-under-par for the whole competition, which was seven shots behind Koepka.
For the pair, this win held extra significance because it put Koepka one major title ahead of McIlroy’s record; the first big achievement for him in four years. Referring to this, McIlroy, speaking to Full Swing’s cameras, said: “F***, someone in my era has got more majors than I have. It is hard for me to not define myself as one of the best golfers in the world, so when you struggle like that you feel a little lost.”
He also confessed that it was the nudge he needed to step away from the off-course drama surrounding the Tour and LIV, adding: “I think it was a wake-up call for me to say ‘lets just focus on the golf for a little bit.”