For a time this year, Rory McIlroy’s ankle rather than his shot-making was the focus.
Doing it his way, the Northern Irishman used Instagram and other social media sites to post images of the damaged ankle and uploaded videos of his rehabilitation from his bolthole in Portugal.
McIlroy had announced – yes, via an Instagram post on July 6th – that he had suffered a “total rupture of the left ATFL (ankle ligament) and associated joint capsule damage” while playing soccer with friends.
From that moment on, missing out on his defence of the British Open at St Andrews up to his return at the US PGA in Whistling Straits, golf’s poster boy’s updates were medical rather than golfing in nature.
There were those who wondered if he could ever return to his best. As Colin Montgomerie, an eight-time Order of Merit champion on the European Tour, observed, "I hope that this repairs and he has the confidence to swing the club the way he did before. That's the fear, because a huge amount of pressure and tension goes through that (ankle) area."
Play again
He wasn’t alone in expressing concern about McIlroy’s return.
Darren Clarke
, standing in for McIlroy to receive an award on the latter’s behalf, said it was unlikely that McIlroy would play again in 2015, that he would more likely return to the circuit in 2016. Clarke later said he was “joking” when making those comments.
Still, there were those who really did wonder about McIlroy’s ability to overcome such a serious injury. In a year which had started with a victory in the Dubai Desert Classic in just his second event of the season, and then quickly moved on to his failed quest for the career Grand Slam at the Masters, McIlroy’s ankle became one of the hottest talking points in golf simply because of his stature.
Of sustaining the injury, McIlroy was philosophical. “It’s unfortunate that it happened. It can happen walking off a tee box. It can happen falling off a kerb on the side of the street. It can happen doing anything. And unfortunately, my foot just got stuck on the turf and went over on it,” he explained.
But after sustaining that ankle injury, he studiously undertook a rehab programme developed by Dr Steve McGregor. That process started at home in Belfast and, then, moved to the hideaway in Portugal where occasional videos and photos posted on social media by the player himself kept us updated.
When the time came to play tournament golf again, it was at the US PGA. He made the nine hour flight from Portugal to Wisconsin in August, and had on board with him a number of machines to compress and ice the recovering ankle. “It kept the inflammation down to a minimum,” said McIlroy.
And whilst he failed to successfully defend the PGA title, finishing 17th behind breakthrough Major winner Jason Day, McIlroy was back competing again. It was at that point that retaining the Race to Dubai title became an objective.
More amenable
Also, incoming European Tour chief Keith Pelley’s decision to allow McIlroy play 12 tournaments instead of the required 13 made the task of mapping out an itinerary up to the Race to Dubai all the more amenable. It meant, for one, that McIlroy didn’t have to play four tournaments in a row, something his medical specialists had advised against. It also meant he had a chance to be a repeat Order of Merit winner – despite missing some two months of the season at the height of the summer .
Winning the Tour Championship ruled out all other possibilities and again left him as the No. 1 player on the European Tour’s final standings.
Although there was to be no Major trophy added to his cabinet this year, and given the disruption of the ankle injury, and also the effect of the protracted legal proceedings with his former management company Horizon which ended with a settlement but only after court appearances, McIlroy can look back on 2015 as interesting and also satisfying.
He had four tournament wins: three of which, the Dubai Desert Classic, the WGC-Matchplay and the DP World Tour Championship, counted on the European Tour; and another in the Wells Fargo on the PGA Tour.
By any standards, it was a hugely impressive season. Taking into account a couple of five-letter words – court and ankle – it was all the more impressive.
