Tiger Woods’ nickname for Rory McIlroy and comment to son Charlie | Golf | Sport
Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have a convoluted relationship that dates back to when the Northern Irishman was a fresh-faced kid on the PGA Tour circuit. The 36-year-old will take part in the Genesis Invitational this week, a tournament organised by Woods’ TGR Foundation – and it is rumoured that the American will be on hand to present the trophy.
By the time McIlroy had turned professional, Woods already had 13 major championship wins – including the career Grand Slam. The 36-year-old had won the US Open by the time he challenged for another major in 2012. After securing the PGA Championship that year, McIlroy admitted he grew up idolising the American golfer and had aspirations to challenge the icon. He even joked that Woods was ‘intimidated’ by him. McIlroy said: “He’s (Tiger’s) got a new nickname for me, actually. He calls me The Intimidator.”
He then clarified the nickname wasn’t his doing by adding: “No. How can I intimidate Tiger Woods? I mean, the guy’s got 75 or whatever PGA Tour wins, 14 majors.
“He’s been the biggest thing ever in our sport. How could some little 23-year-old from Northern Ireland with a few wins come up and intimidate him. It’s just not possible. I don’t know where he got that from, but it’s not true.”
It appears that Woods was just trying to get into his opponent’s head at the time with some reverse psychology. Six years later, the American taunted his rivals by stating it was “their f****** issue” if they were affected by him on the fairways.
In 2018, he can be heard in a video saying: “I can’t control you. The only thing I can control is me. If you get intimidated, that’s your own f***ing issue.”
It looks like the Woods-McIlroy rivalry blossomed into a beautiful friendship that came with healthy competition. Following the Northern Irishman’s 2024 US Open loss, the 50-year-old revealed he reached out to the golfer to offer his support.
Woods said: “[I texted him] just basically, as you know, I’m your friend. I know this is a difficult moment. We’ve all been there as champions. We all lose. Unfortunately, it just happened and the raw emotion of it, it’s still there and it’s going to be there for, I’m sure, some time.
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“The faster he’s able to get back on a horse and get back into contention, like he did last week [in the Scottish Open], the better it is for him.”
Praising McIlroy, he added: “He’s got such a wonderful talent and he’s a good kid too. He’s got a lot of things going for him.”
In fact, Woods holds McIlroy in such high regard that he urged his son Charlie to copy the Masters winner’s golf swing over his own. Despite being a 15-time major tournament winner, the American insisted that he would rather his amateur golfer son took tips from the 36-year-old instead.
He said: “I told [Charlie], ‘Don’t copy my swing. Copy Rory’s’.”
Woods added: “Have you ever seen Rory off balance in a shot? Not ever. That’s one of the things my dad instilled in me, is that you should be able to balance and hold your finish until the ball rolls and stops. You can swing as hard as you want, but you need to have balance.”
