In a world where our ears are unknowingly subjected to constant white noise twenty-four hours a day, in recent months Rory McIlroy has been one of the very few of us human beings to desire and seek and finally find that silence which no one seems to aspire anymore.
Rory McIlroy, results
Now: on Monday it was precisely his ability to find the absence of noise between his ears (along with his infinite talent) that allowed him to emerge victorious in Dubai from a basically mental war that lasted almost a whole week against Patrick Reed and the world of web.
The background chatter about the tee-gate between Rory and Patrizione that took place last Wednesday at the driving range in Dubai, then taken up and retold by every social account, in addition to the constant rumors about the war between the LIV and the Tours in favor of which number 1 in the World Ranking spent everywhere and always, they would not only put a ton of pressure on even Superman’s shoulders, but they would also distract anyone from the progress of the tournament.
All but not McIlroy, who for months, if not years, has made his digital detox a daily practice that is starting to bear the desired fruit. “It was above all a psychological battle – a satisfied Rory said immediately after the end of the tournament – and I had to cleanse my emotions from everything that was happening around me.
Precisely this ability gave me a very sweet victory, perhaps even sweeter than it normally should have been ”. In a world, that of us ordinary mortal beings, in which life has become the compulsive filling of voids, voids that we fill also and above all with the continuous noise of the digital background, Rory McIlroy understood that to make a difference only the his class: he needed silence.
He looked for him, and he found him, moving away for some time now from those social networks that transmitted him – so he said – only negative energies: his emptiness, Rory, filled him with that presence, that awareness and that lucidity that in the last few months, not surprisingly, have come in handy on the pitch.
The most realistic of us argue that wanting does not mean power: they say it is not enough, because often what we want, we simply cannot have and that’s it. Rory, however, wanted to put a point in his private life, desiring silence, and he found that silence by turning off his cell phone.
In this case, wanting was yes power. From Dubai therefore comes a Rory who is even more aware of his means and of the goodness of the road he took months ago: the chats with Bob Rotella, his mental coach, and the digital minimalism that allowed him to refocus his life in a world full of distractions, will be two pillars on which to build the foundations of the most important week for him in 2023.
Obviously that of Augusta: if even in Georgia McIlroy manages to keep quiet between his ears, then this year the green jacket could be finally his.
