Veteran sportswriter Alan Shipnuck begins his new biography on Rory McIlroy by recalling his shifting relationship with the Northern Irish golfer. It starts in 2012, when the gregarious 23-year-old McIlroy, fresh from a string of tournament victories, eagerly quizzed Shipnuck on how to decipher Tiger Woods’s enigmatic personality.
Fast-forward to McIlroy’s victory press conference at the 2018 Ryder Cup, when the golfer called good-natured attention to Shipnuck’s failed prediction that he would lose the tournament. Fast-forward again to the 2025 U.S. Open, when a foul-mouthed and ill-humored McIlroy confronted Shipnuck over a planned biography, claiming the writer sought to profit off his success.
