Rory McIlroy has taken a standoffish approach to the media over the past couple of months, and now Matthew Southgate has given his opinion on the matter when speaking exclusively to the Golfing Gazette.
Southgate knows McIlroy personally, having gone face-to-face with the Masters champion at the Irish Open way back in 2016.
After the Northern Irishman’s incredible victory at Augusta National, things slowly began to go downhill for him.
Just before the start of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in May, McIlroy’s driver was deemed to be non-conforming.
He then embarked on a media blackout, so to speak, and refused to speak to the press after six consecutive major rounds.
Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
One month after the PGA, McIlroy admitted that he felt hard done by because the press had leaked his name in relation to the driver testing controversy, while keeping other players’ names anonymous.
But while the five-time major champion has received heavy criticism, he has plenty of supporters as well.
Matthew Southgate delivers verdict on Rory McIlroy’s recent behaviour
It goes without saying that Southgate is a big fan of McIlroy.
The 36-year-old from Essex in England didn’t hesitate when asked by The Golfing Gazette who is the best player he has ever played with.
He said: “I’d say the best player I’ve ever played with has to be Rory. He hits certain shots that other players just can’t hit. There’s a lot of very, very good players obviously, and there is only a certain amount that you can do with a golf ball. A lot of players at the top of the game can hit all the shots, but every now and again Rory just hits a drive or a fairway wood or a short game shot that’s just, they are one-off shots but he does it in the moment, while other players might need four or five takes to get it right. He gets it right in that moment, he really is a very special player.“
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Southgate is in McIlroy’s corner when it comes to his recent behaviour with the media.
“Rory’s recent media stuff, I mean he gets pulled from pillar to post,“ Southgate explained. “I think he’s an amazing credit to the sport. He does a lot of stuff for the sport and I feel like a lot of the time the golfing media can be very, very harsh, and they almost goad people into stories.
“The journalism around sport 30 or 40 years ago, it was all about performance, it was all about telling the story of what happened on the course and who had come out triumphant. I feel like sometimes digging into politics and the business side of things and people’s behaviour, I just think there is a lot of very, very poor journalists in the world. All they want is some clickbait, they’re happy to throw players under the bus and make people look silly, rather than focus on what Rory has done on the golf course which is generally incredible.
“He’s always under the microscope, same as all those top players,“ the DP World Tour player continued. “They have a ‘bad’ week and they finish fifth and they get hammered rather than taking the positives. That’s a shame with the world we live in. If the people in the media have upset Rory, then they’re probably the ones to blame if Rory doesn’t want to give as much of his time, and I think that’s understandable.
Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
“I think if every single journalist treated Rory with a load of respect and stayed on track by talking about golf then he’d probably behave slightly differently. Unfortunately the majority of journalists and media writers want to give a good account of themselves, but there’s always the minority who want to spoil that and ask stupid questions, and goad people into a reaction, and then trimming up a headline to put it on social media to get clicks, and that’s not journalism.”
Southgate has gone head-to-head with McIlroy in a huge tournament in the past, so he knows very well what the Masters champion is like between the ropes.
Matthew Southgate shares what Rory McIlroy was like at the 2016 Irish Open
Back in 2016 at the Irish Open, Southgate shot rounds of 70 and 69 to put him in second place after two rounds, two shots adrift of the leader, McIlroy.
The Englishman and the Northern Irishman were paired together in the final group out on Saturday at the K Club.
And Southgate lifted the lid on what that experience was like.
“Playing with Rory was an amazing experience,“ Southgate explained. “I was just off the back of having testicular cancer and getting through tour school. It had been a really rough 10 months for me. To be honest, I tried to get so engrossed and focused on what I was doing that I really didn’t pay that much attention to what Rory was doing.
“Paul McGinley gave me some great advice the night before, on the Friday night, he said, ‘just make sure you try to get the crowd onside, they’ll all be there to watch Rory so make sure you smile and wave and try a bit of small talk with the crowd on the way round and you’ll feel that they’re supporting you as well’.
“And he was bang on with that because as soon as I walked off the first green I was trying to sort of interact a little bit with the crowd, and by the time I got round to the fourth or fifth I felt like that crowd kind of bought into the underdog story to support me as well.
“It was great, and I really enjoyed it. Rory was a gentleman to play with. He obviously knew I was under a lot of pressure and he made it as easy as he possibly could. Once I started hitting a few good shots and got into the round, you’re not there for the occasion. I had already had quite a lot of experience up to that point of playing in some big tournaments with some big players, so it was just about trying to stay in my own lane.“
McIlroy shot a two-under par round of 70 on day three at The K Club, while Southgate carded a 73.
And the 29-time PGA Tour winner went on to win the tournament, while the Englishman ended up with a very respectable fourth place finish.
Southgate will certainly be hoping for many more days like that moving forward.