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14 | Issue 19 | Qatar Sport “Your success only makes you more motivated to do better. I have become a very good player, but I still have a lot of years to progress and I just want to keep improving.”
SUPERSTAR PROFILE THE MAJOR MAN As a youngster Rory McIlroy was inspired by Tiger Woods. Now he has acquired his mantle as the sport’s global superstar. THERE ARE MANY reasons why sport captivates the world. Often it is the skill, artistry and bizarre beauty of the performance. It can be the raw excitement of the blood and thunder, winner-takes-all competition. And it is almost always to do with the never-ending soap opera which provides the context for the battle. Like all soap operas, sport has a revolving cast. New heroes and villains are continually introduced to ensure that the plot line never goes stale. Naturally enough, heroes occasionally become villains and have to be replaced by shiny new idols…and that is more or less exactly what has happened in the world of golf in recent years. In golf, this was to be the age of the Tiger. For years Tiger Woods swept all before him, his sublime ability coupled with a charisma which made him a winner on the course and in the world of corporate endorsements as big brands battled for his signature and, in doing so, made him the highest earning sportsman in the world. This was an athlete whose fame transcended golf. In fact it transcended sport. He was better recognised than Presidents and Sovereigns, respected and loved by fans on the fairway and the directors of companies whose brands he helped to sell. And then it all went wrong. The implosion of Tiger Wood is a story that has been endlessly told since the night his car ‘crashed’ outside his home in Florida and his world began to cave in. He withdrew from the circuit, leaving a massive vacancy and fuelling worries that golf could not survive without its guiding light. Although the Tiger is back – and some would say approaching something like his previous form- sport has moved on as it always does. A vacuum is always filled and this one was no exception. Global golf has entered a new era and its pin-up boy is a tousled-haired 23-year-old from Northern Ireland who has been electrifying golf tournaments on both sides of the Atlantic ocean and leaving massive global TV audiences spellbound. SECOND MAJOR Earlier this year, Rory McIlroy recorded an eight stroke victory in the PGA Championship to record his second win in a Major. The first was last year’s US Open, also won by an eight stroke margin. After winning the US Open he said: “I couldn’t ask for much more, and I’m just so happy to be holding this trophy. I know how good Tiger was in 2000 to win by 15 in Pebble [Beach]. I was trying to go out there and emulate him in some way. I played great for four days, and I couldn’t be happier.” His PGA win made him the youngest multiple Major winner since Seve Ballesteros in 1980 and the sixth youngest of all time. In many ways it was a coming of age victory, one which marked the stellar youngster as a genuine star rather than a fast-burning meteorite. “It meant an awful lot to me. It was special because it was for the second major and that validated the first win,” McIlroy said. The remarkable thing was that this winning run came off the back of one of the poorest stretches in his recent career. “I had gone through a bad patch, missing four out of five cuts in the lead up,” explained McIlroy who puts his return to winning ways down to his mental attitude. But rather than satisfying his hunger for success, his second Major has simply whetted his appetite. “I think this proves I have the hunger to win more. I have my second Major, now I want my third and fourth,” he said. Naturally there is a lot of competition out there and notwithstanding the return to form of Woods himself, a group of players who stand in his way at each and every tournament. “It is a very competitive era. The gap between the first and hundredth ranked player in the world is very small,” he said. McIlroy finished the 2012 regular season with back-to-back wins in the PGA BMW and Deutsche Bank events, becoming the first European to win four PGA Tour events in a single season. His list of firsts is truly impressive. With 10 professional tournament wins to his name he became the youngest player to win €10 million on the European tour and $10 million on the PGA Tours. Perhaps Rory McIlroy was always Qatar Sport | Issue 19 | 15
Page 1 and 2: ISSUE 19 OCTOBER 2012 $10 DOHA GOAL
Page 3 and 4: INSIDE 5 In Focus Sporting life thr
Page 5 and 6: 1 THE SPORTING WORLD THROUGH THE LE
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Page 10 and 11: UPDATE Richard Attias and Carl Lewi
Page 12: UPDATE INBRIEF TREnTIno TARgETs
Page 17 and 18: SUPERSTAR PROFILE “McIlroy’s co
Page 19 and 20: COMING UP 5-14/12 PSA World Squash
Page 21 and 22: MY LONDON 2012 “I believe that th
Page 24 and 25: FIT FOR LIFE HITTING THE TARGET The
Page 26 and 27: Leaders: Incisive opinion and livel
Page 29 and 30: QATAR STARS LEAGUE LOOK TO THE STAR
Page 31 and 32: 7 AL WAKRA Captain of the iraq nati
Page 33 and 34: Championships, Qatar 2016 Olympic B
Page 35 and 36: Winning margins at FIFA World Cup a

Qatar sport COVERMG.indd - Qatar Olympic Committee

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