As the sun set over the mountains on the other side of Belfast Lough, the final rays fading and dying like Rory McIlroy’s hopes of finally winning the Masters, one local from Augusta was drowning her sorrows inside the bar of the Northern Irish golfer’s home club.
By the window of Holywood Golf Club overlooking the very links where McIlroy first learned to swing and putt 84-year-old Annie Emmett, drinking a glass of fizzy orange, produced pictures of herself holding up some of the trophies that the Ulster golfing superstar has actually won.
“That’s me with the US Open Trophy,” she said proudly. “The bar staff here in the club let me get a picture with it earlier today. It was an honour to hold it up and know that Rory had won this.”
Annie Emmett emigrated from Northern Ireland in 1966, first to Canada and then to Augusta, Georgia. Emmett revealed that she has rented out her house to golfers at the course while she comes home to Northern Ireland on holiday.
“A few years ago I rented the house out to Padraig Harrington when he was playing at Augusta. Golf is a big part of my life as my grand-daughter Sarah plays pro golf. We have been supporting her ever since she played golf for Augusta College. But Rory is our hero, everyone in Augusta loves him.”
Amid the groans from the club members when McIlroy had a fourth bogey Sunday night Emmett said she was proud of the Holywood golfer and remembered his grandmother whom she knew as a girl. “He has done us all so proud over the years and I keep telling people that back in the States. It is great that he comes from our part of the world,” she added.
She was surrounded by her extended family who also have connections to McIlroy. Her nephew Raymond McCormick went to school with McIlroy’s father, Gerry, who at one stage worked 100 hours per week to fund his son’s participation in amateur tournaments. McCormick said he believed “Rory has really put Northern Ireland back on the map the same way George Best once did”.
Yet pressed on why McIlroy has not achieved professional golf’s ‘grand slam’ by never winning the US Masters, McCormick said: “It’s the pressure on him, it has to be . If he would cool it a bit and just do what he does so naturally, Rory would win it and make history. He will do it eventually.”
Patricia Hawkins, a niece of Annie Emmett and member of Holywood Golf Club, was disappointed that her local hero had failed to clinch the Masters. “Rory looked like nervous over the weekend and that’s why he didn’t win this time. But he will get it eventually. We all have faith in our Rory,” she said.
As McIlroy slipped down the leaderboard, the atmosphere in the clubhouse perched over the course at home where he first honed his skills became funereal, the numbers in the bar thinning out to a hardcore of golfing fans watching the live feed on the giant TV screen.
In the hallway of the club there were advertising posters alongside framed signed photographs of McIlroy. They were for a gig at the bar in a fortnight; for a “Just Paul and John” Beatles duo tribute act. The veterans of Holywood Golf Club will be hoping that this weekend’s collapse of form by their homegrown hero in Augusta does not signal the end of a phenomenon that in terms of the sport, local pride and hero‑worship matches Beatlemania here in this affluent, picturesque corner of Northern Ireland.
