Is Rory the next career slam golfer?

Gary Player knows what Rory McIlroy is facing right now. When he was just 23 years old, he won the first of his nine major championships. Despite a double-bogey to finish the 1959 Open Championship, the South African won his maiden major title.

Some 52 years after the win, Player can still vividly remember and describe his emotions in the days and weeks that followed first obtaining the Claret Jug.

“It was something I could not get over for a week. I was on Cloud 9,” he said in a telephone interview last week.

Player’s victory was not certain, unlike what Rory McIlroy accomplished last month in winning the U.S. Open at Congressional by eight shots.

“I doubled the last hole and I thought I had lost it,” he exclaimed.

“I was the youngest man to win the British Open at that stage – 23 years of age – but you can imagine at 23, winning the Open championship, you’re in a dream world.”

The party Player had – at least as he described it – was probably a little more subdued than what the Ulsterman did to celebrate being the youngest U.S. Open winner since Bobby Jones. But by then, Player had a family, including a 3-month-old daughter and a new trophy as his second child.

“I woke up the next day and I put the trophy next to my wife and I in the bed – to do what I have dreamed, to win the Open Championship, the oldest major, the one steeped in the most history,” he said.

Player conveyed some of that sentiment to young McIlroy after the Ulsterman won at Congressional.

“I phoned him after the Open and he was appreciative, and he’s just a wonderful young man,” he said.

The superlatives Player has for McIlroy, though, go well beyond his pleasant manor. He could see McIlroy becoming one of golf’s greatest champions.

“I think a man like Rory can conceivably be the next Grand Slam winner – if he has the passion and the desire,” Player said. As one of just a handful of men to do it, he has an eye for the talent it takes to tame all four, different majors.

The mental fortitude that Player had to win nine majors was based in the quiet confidence like the kind that McIlroy has.

“I was always optimistic that I could win the Grand Slam,” Player said.

He continued with the praise for McIlroy, saying that the performance at Congressional was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement.

“There’s no telling how good he would be,” he said. “I never thought I would live to see the day when every single U.S. Open record was crushed!”

Tiger Woods in 2000? Didn’t even get a mention. That’s how good Player thought McIlroy’s play was.

“It was mind-boggling, really,” he added.

When Player won his first major, though, he did not take a break until the next one. That was not an option for a professional golfer in that age.

“In those days, we played everything we could because we didn’t have a full schedule like they do today. A tournament, two weeks off, maybe another two tournaments, then three weeks off,” he said.

The money in the sport was a different matter completely in the early stages of Player’s career. Winning drove everything.

“We played because we wanted to be a world champion. That was the big thing we had to do – win major championships,” he said.

McIlroy, who Player described as well-to-do because of his on-course performance and outside-the-ropes marketability, will be like the South African – driven to keep winning for the sake of being a champion.

The Ulsterman will have to learn how to manage being a champion with the rest of his life. He has a girlfriend, a lot of endorsements and a world of fans. McIlroy chose to delve into those aspects of his life as part of his preparation for the Open Championship.

Player, who emphasized the power of the mind and will, said that it was the right call despite doing the opposite in his career.

“If he believes that’s right in his mind, then it’s good. I would not have done that, but everyone’s different,” he said.

Back in the summer of ’59, Player was a 23-year-old kid with a degree from the world and a Claret Jug as his diploma. That win, how he handled it and the lessons he learned from victory and defeat allowed him to become one of golf’s greatest – and most traveled – champions. Looking back on his accomplishment that year at Muirfield and through his career, Player feels incredibly blessed to have had the jounrey he has.

“Little did I know that my name would go on the Claret Jug two more times,” he said.

Maybe Rory will look back saying the same thing in another half-century.

Player said, “It’s been an absolute dream for me and something that I have nothing but appreciation for.”

drive4show wrote:I think it's a distinct possibility that Rory could do the slam but I certainly don't think we are likely to see a dominant player again. Has everyone raised their games since Tiger's demise? It seems now that every Major is a bit of a free for all. So many potential winners! And so many good young players around the 22/23 and under mark. Day, Rory, Ishikawa, Matteo, Rickieeee.

super_realist wrote:I think he's fairly talented, pretty impressive against Molinari at the Ryder Cup but he's done nothing since and he looks like a complete imbecile on the course, even for an American he's taking lack of style too far, he makes Poulter look like John Steed.

super_realist wrote:I think he's fairly talented, pretty impressive against Molinari at the Ryder Cup but he's done nothing since and he looks like a complete imbecile on the course, even for an American he's taking lack of style too far, he makes Poulter look like John Steed.

super_realist wrote:...he looks like a complete imbecile on the course, even for an American he's taking lack of style too far, he makes Poulter look like John Steed.

Diggers wrote:Definitely Fowler to win the slam next I reckon. Superstar in the making.