Rory McIlroy would have been the just BBC Sports Personality of the Year
|
Version 0 of 1. The good news for Rory McIlroy is that his career will be defined and remembered by multiple major championship victories. Nobody will retrospectively care that the golfer was unjustly denied the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2014. Which, in itself, is illuminating. The only logical conclusions to be drawn from Sunday evening in Glasgow are that McIlroy’s failure to endorse his sporting superiority to Lewis Hamilton owed plenty to timing and the inability of a wider audience to understand the scale of his season’s success. McIlroy has every right to be wounded by this result on the simple basis that it was unfair, even if he has far bigger career priorities. Hamilton’s world championship glory is far more fresh in the mind of the public consciousness than McIlroy’s stunning summer of golf. That spell included back-to-back major triumphs, a World Golf Championship win, playing a crucial part in a Ryder Cup success and the march back to No1 in the world, which seemed simply unattainable during a troubled 2013. These sorts of spells are not routine for European golfers. Unlike Hamilton, McIlroy didn’t achieve everything he did with a clear competitive advantage over his rivals. Being blunt, and for all Hamilton’s brilliance in his field, sport is not about gears, tyres and space-centre computer systems which control every move. Unlike Hamilton, McIlroy also did not take a sullen approach to the culmination of his professional year before appearing on programmes such as This Morning in a bid to endear himself to a nation where he spends little time anyway. And, speaking of television, the BBC’s continued withdrawal from serious golf coverage unquestionably harmed McIlroy in respect of public awareness. Formula One retains far more of a presence on the BBC. This was a typically curious Spoty affair; one where a non-coach, Paul McGinley, was awarded coach of the year. One where Carl Froch claimed only 11,000 votes; 80,000 watched him triumph over George Groves at Wembley in May. Quite what the Sports Personality occasion is representative of remains as unclear as ever. Perhaps golf and boxing fans simply feel no compulsion to vote for their favourites. Certainly the result is damaging to golf and to the reputation of the event – the sport has been represented just nine times in 60 years on the Sports Personality podium, a ludicrous statistic given the participation and viewing figures over that period. McGinley was clearly baffled by McIlroy’s snub, if typically measured in his public verdict. “I honestly don’t think a golfer can have a better year on the course than Rory had,” he said. “Not just in terms of his major wins and success in world events but what he did for the Ryder Cup team, the role he played there. I am very disappointed for him. “Rory is a great guy, he is very mature and understands the responsibilities that come with being the world’s No1 player. He is very happy to carry that. We are lucky in golf to have a guy like him.” Indeed, McIlroy is entitled to ask what he needs to do in order to claim this trophy; he would be well within his rights to swerve it in a year’s time, by which point he may have claimed a grand slam of major championships. He could follow recent tradition by appearing via videolink, a move that didn’t do Andy Murray any notable harm 12 months ago. The sinister argument relating to McIlroy’s second-place finish suggests his declaration for Ireland in respect of the 2016 Olympics played a part. This is a ludicrous notion. McIlroy’s participation for Ireland as both an amateur and young professional was never considered a negative in a United Kingdom context. His confirmation that he would play under an Ireland flag in Rio de Janeiro passed over in the summer without controversy. In the Glaswegian venue on Sunday, McIlroy’s on-stage arrival was met with the loudest cheer of the night. British golf fans have lauded the 25-year-old, none more so than at the moment of his Open success five months ago at Hoylake. They have done likewise towards AP McCoy and Darren Clarke, Northern Irishmen who have respectively won and been robbed of victory on recent Sports Personality nights. It says a lot that a debate is even taking place regarding Hamilton’s success over McIlroy. The sentiment is perfectly valid. |