The man at the door is a kind and friendly sort. He’s also not much of a golf fan, but there’s an artificial putting green in his back garden and occasionally it draws strangers to his house on the corner of Strathearn Court and Belfast Road.
This is Holywood, where a star was born 36 years ago, and an hour or so north from here is Royal Portrush, where that same guy will challenge for the Claret Jug this week. The noise and fuss will be off the scale for Rory McIlroy.
But the interest at this property will be warm rather than frenzied. If Aaron Williamson does check on the scores, his curiosity will be mainly driven by the quirks of one fact – he lives in the house where McIlroy grew up.
Hence the garden putting green, installed by McIlroy’s dad Gerry after they moved in when his son was four, and why pilgrims turn up on Williamson’s doorstep from time to time.
‘I get the knock on the door from time to time,’ he told me last Sunday afternoon, while McIlroy was working his way towards finishing second at the Scottish Open. ‘It really isn’t very often that someone comes by to see it but whenever it was that he won the Masters, there was a flurry of interest.’
Williamson has been here since 2021, living in the four-bedroom semi with his wife, two children and dog. He’s the pastor at a Baptist church a couple of hundred yards up the street and it bemuses him more than anything else that he lives on what might be deemed a heritage site.
This putting green is where a young Rory McIlroy first perfected his game
The green was installed by McIlroy’s father Gerry, after they moved in when Rory was four
Rory with his parents Rosie and Gerry after winning the Dubai Desert Classic last year
‘I find it quite funny and surreal because none of us are big golfers,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s a nice story to tell. We did a charity event after the Masters, because there was quite a bit of interest and a few more knocks than usual. We almost felt we wanted to release the tension by opening it up.
‘A neighbour across the road runs a charity called The Big House so we said if people paid a fiver they could come and play a few putts and have a coffee. That was a week after the Masters and it was an awful day for weather, but maybe 50 people came.
‘Rory has done so well for himself and everyone here is very fond of him. It is nice to sometimes think he was stood out there practising putts to win the Open.’
Mail Sport was invited to have a go, so we set up a putt at similar range to the four-footer McIlroy drained on that fabulous night at Augusta three months. Misreading the line and length, two charged by the hole and one dropped. It’s lightning fast.
‘That’s because it’s a bit worn out by now,’ said Williamson. McIlroy’s parents, Gerry and Rosie, left for another part of the small town more than 20 years ago, when their prodigy was in his mid-teens. Each time it has changed hands, no one had the heart to turf over the artificial surface and its six cups.
‘We were aware when we were buying it that it would almost be our responsibility to look after it,’ Williamson said. ‘To be honest, there have been times when we would love to put some grass out there but it doesn’t feel quite right! It’s a bit of a catch-22!’
Williamson has never met McIlroy, but like most here in this spot east of Belfast, where the population barely touches 12,000, they all know Holywood is synonymous with their golfing son.
The welcome sign off the A2 makes reference to the ‘home of Rory McIlroy’, and for McIlroy’s parents, it is still home.
Mail Sport’s Riath Al-Samarrai has a go at the four-foot putt that McIlroy sunk to win the Masters
Unfortunately, this green is lightning quick – and two of our man’s putts sail on by
‘When he comes back here we try not to make a fuss of him, just so it can be a place where everything is comfortable, normal, and he can just be Rory,’ said Ruth Watt, the ladies captain at Holywood Golf Club. It’s where McIlroy’s father, a scratch golfer, worked as a barman and his son learned the game.
McIlroy’s parents stop in at the golf club for dinner most weeks, and McIlroy visits when he can. His home has been Florida for over a decade and his newest property is in Wentworth, but Holywood, says Watt, will ‘always be home’.
The car park at the club keeps a permanent parking space for him; members say he stumped up £750,000 for their gym and substantially more for other renovations.
‘He came in and used the gym after the Masters,’ said Watt. A trove of his memorabilia, from golf bags to signed flags and replica trophies, are so prominent in the clubhouse that they sell tours to American tourists. In the bar, there is also a framed scorecard from his course-record 61 at Portrush as a 16-year-old.
‘I think it’s nice for him to have a place where he knows he can escape,’ said Trevor Heaven, the men’s captain. ‘Everyone here knows Rory and his family and we’re all proud. It’s good for him to have a spot to go where he doesn’t have the pressure he might have out there.’
There’s a nook downstairs at the Dirty Duck pub on the waterfront, beneath a signed painting of McIlroy, where he used to meet with his mates. The barman says he hasn’t been in for a few years, but directed Mail Sport to Ned’s pub, next to the maypole that has stood since the 1700s.
An ‘old man pub’, I’m told. The locals confirm McIlroy is in semi-regularly when he’s home, and same goes for Coffee Yard just up the street. ‘He’s a gent and when he’s here, he’s just Rory to us,’ said Martin Gleason at the bar in Ned’s. ‘No one makes a mad fuss about it.’
The fuss 60 miles north, at Portrush, will be significant this week. McIlroy spoke about it on Monday and how it was so overwhelming at the 2019 Open that he could not handle the expectation – he shot 79 in his first round and missed the cut. Returning as a Masters champion, and finally with a spring in his step after three months of poor form, he reckons he will process it better.
McIlroy at his home golf club back in 2009, just after he had first won the Desert Classic
The club’s members erupt in joy after McIlroy won the Masters in April, completing the career Grand Slam
He also pointed out that when he played his practise round he was struck by how many of the stewards and volunteers he recognised from local clubs he played as a kid and teenager.
The sense that this is an area where the degrees of separation are less than some towns was brought home on Sunday, after Mail Sport left Holywood and arrived at our rented horse in Portstewart.
The owners Ken and Patricia Craig politely enquired where I had spent my day and so I told them I played golf in McIlroy’s old garden. ‘Oh,’ said Patricia. ‘We sold that house to the McIlroys in 1993. Do you remember when he was nine and on television chipping into his washing machine? That was my old washing machine.’
Small world.
