Saturday 21 November 2009

Can McIlroy pull it out of the fire?

Moving to a sport about as far removed from professional football in every respect. Where cheating is just about unheard of, and players are known to call penalties on themselves as a matter of course. Rory McIlroy leads the European Order of Merit going into the final tournament in Dubai, this weekend. He's had a real ding-dong battle with Lee Westwood this year, leapfrogging him to the top spot only last week. But a triple bogey finish in his 3rd round now leaves him 5 behind the "veteran" Westwood, going into the final round. It's not over, but certainly a long-shot now. It's still been an incredible season from the Co. Down man, earning over €2.5 m in 2009, having only turned pro 2 years ago. (He is 20 years younger than yours truly!). Incredibly, Harrington has only won the Order of Merit once in his career (2006). Before that, you have to go back to '89 for Ronan Rafferty's win. In between, Monty won 7 times in a row, then a 6 year gap to win it again the year before Harrington. Maybe Padraig - level with McIlroy in Dubai now - can do McIlroy a favour by reeling in Westwood, who is guaranteed the Order of Merit if he wins this tournament. The incentive to win the Race to Dubai? A cool €1m prize money to top off the season. Nice.

Irish Times report here Print this post

3 comments:

board tc said...

So McIlroy came 2nd in the order of merit and so only won €3.6 Million this year. It raises an eyebrow when sports people in these times continue to earn these obscene amounts of money.

As regards the order of merit, my brother reckons it's irrelevant and is all about the money. He says people will remember Monty as the best player never to win a major not that he won 8 order of merits.

mcg said...

I guess everything is all about the money now. It has been for some time....

McIlroy breaks into top ten, Harringon 6th - see here

Olive Tree said...

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