Trans-Tasman rivalry can be ferocious over the provenance of the flat white or the pavlova, but beside the Irish custody battle over golfing great Rory McIlroy, it’s a storm in a tee cup.
The win for the proud Ulsterman, who has also represented the Irish Republic at the Olympics, is arguably a more debated Irish border issue than Brexit.
When last month he achieved his grand slam in Augusta, becoming – even to a devout anti-monarchist – king of the sport, it seemed as if the Irish border might cease to exist overnight, so eager were both sides to claim him.
Even someone with a severe golf allergy would have to concede that winning five majors is a sensational achievement, whether McIlroy technically comes from Northern Ireland, population 1.9 million, the whole of Ireland, numbering 7.2 million, or from Great Britain and the republic combined, at 73.6 million. That it has taken McIlroy a decade after his penultimate win to get there perversely only adds to the triumph, because his quest has kept the golf world on tenterhooks for so much of that time.
The last few hours of the Augusta game, in which he made decisions that by turns puzzled, maddened and dazzled spectators, were possibly the biggest advance in Irish unity since the Good Friday agreement. McIlroy is a unifying figure, for all the island’s havering over his allegiance, because he is a Northern Irishman who regards himself as simply an Irishman as well.
This requires tact. When, following McIlroy’s 2011 US Open victory, a spectator draped the Irish Republic’s tricolour flag over him, he discreetly removed it. He still, after all, lives in Holywood, Belfast, where he’s been a member of the local golf club since he was 7, and obviously has no wish to stir up sectarianism.
There was, however, a peculiarly un-Irish aspect to his win: taciturnity. His decision not to engage in chitchat, particularly with playing partner Bryson DeChambeau, caused a flurry of speculation, and no wonder. Generally, the only non-talkative Irish person is one whose pulse urgently needs checking.
DeChambeau fuelled rumours of a snootiness uncharacteristic of the Irishman when he told the media that McIlroy “hasn’t spoken to me all day”.
In fact, he’d made a tactical decision on the advice of his sports psychologist to zone out other players. Unnatural this may be for one born in the land of the craic and the Blarney Stone, but the extreme focus patently paid off.
Among those in awe was fellow Irish golfing star Pádraig Harrington, who says he himself has “talked the ear off” some opponents but reluctantly refrained from earbashing others in case it helped relax them.
Golfers tell an anecdote about Lee Trevino, who, when an opponent said he preferred not to talk during play, replied, “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk, you just have to listen.”
Golf notwithstanding, intra-island rivalry still has its stoking points. Long the wealthier of the two Irelands, Northern Ireland has now fallen well behind economically, as a new study shows the republic’s household disposable income is 18.3% higher and hourly earnings 36% higher.
Though these stats are from 2022, there’s been no sign since of the gap closing. The reversal of fortune began after the south recovered more quickly from the Global Financial Crisis. Its corporate tax receipts are five times higher and labour productivity 2.5 times that of the north.
The only good news for the north is that it pays less than half the amount of personal income tax per capita as the south – one particular Holywood citizen doubtless paying a fair whack of that.
