Rory McIlroy's former agent blames 'messy lifestyle' for disaster at The Open (2024)

Rory McIlroy's 'messy' life may be contributing to his lack of recent success and his drought when it comes to major tournaments.

That is according to his former agent Andrew 'Chubby' Chandler, who has opened up to talkSPORT about McIlroy in the wake of his disastrous outing at The Open.

The Northern Irishman was competing at Royal Troon in South Ayrshire, having won the tournament once back in 2014.

But he got off to a bad start on the first day, with the famous Postage Stamp eighth hole proving his downfall.

He recorded a double bogey on the eighth, as well as on the 11th, leaving him seven over par at the end of the course.

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The 35-year-old then faced an uphill battle if he was to recover on the second day and make the cut for the weekend, however he found himself eliminated after ending day two on 11-over-par.

Speaking after his exit, McIlroy said: "I obviously got off to the worst start possible today, being six over through six. If I need to remember something about this week, it'll be the last few holes that I played.

"When I look back on the two majors that I didn't play my best at, here and the Masters, the wind got the better of me on Friday at Augusta, and then the wind got the better of me the last two days here.

"I didn't adapt well at all to that left-to-right wind yesterday on the back nine, and then this afternoon going out in that gusty wind on the front, as I said, it got the better of me, and I felt pretty uncomfortable over a few shots. Yeah, that four-hole stretch to start off is what cost me."

While his final score of +11 is disappointing, Chandler has told talkSPORT that McIlroy is likely battling through a lot in his personal life right now, and that it is undoubtedly taking a toll on his performances and the major reason why he has not collected a major title in a decade.

“The top, top players obviously play better more often, and then the really top players take their chances," he said. "That's all that's happened with Rory. Rory's played fantastically for ten years, he just doesn't take any chances.

“Looking from the outside, and I haven't seen Rory for a couple of years, but to me it looks like his life is messy. You know what it’s like as a sportsman, you have to have total focus and keep your mind on what you're doing.

“But it looks like Rory has spent a year and a half fighting LIV for the PGA Tour, then the PGA Tour pulled the rug from under him, then he started talking about LIV not being too bad, then he had his marriage problems, and then he's got such media scrutiny because he hasn't won a major in ten years.

“So he just can't get away from it. I think his life is really messy.”

Chandler was McIlroy's first manager up until 2011, when McIlroy took the decision to split from the agent's International Sports Management (ISM) company.

Asked about the time when he started working with McIlroy, Chandler said: “Well, his life wasn't messy then. At the Open at Carnoustie, I think it was 2007, he was three months away from turning pro and we had a meeting on the patio at Carnoustie, and he bought a house before he actually made any money.

“His contracts were going to be so good in three months' time that he sat down and he said, ‘I want to buy a house’ - I'd never heard a kid like that say that. And that’s what he did, he bought a house before he turned pro. He had the money coming, you know, his contract with Jumeirah Hotels, Titleist, whatever.

“He was just a focused kid who wanted to be the best player in the world, he just wanted to win majors, but then as he's got older - and everybody, to be fair, as they get older your life gets messier, doesn't it? You've got family, you've got wives, you've got business, you've got investment. Things get messier.

“And I think his life has got messy. Right now, he'll be wondering what time to fix the plane to go home!”

“Listen, he'll go out and do his best today [Friday], and his best is very good. So if he plays his best, he could make the cut, but he'll have to play very, very well, won't he? And what is he, seven over? He’s got to shoot 67 or less, which he's well capable of.

“But in his mind, it'll be, ‘What time can I get out of here?’ The last place I think he wants to be at the moment, certainly playing badly, is a golf course. He just wants to get back to his normal life.”

McIlroy has not won a major tournament since 2014, when he won not only the Open, but also the PGA Championship.

But while McIlroy went into the tournament with high expectations and good odds, sports psychotherapist Gary Bloom told talkSPORT Breakfast that the pressure on him to win big probably was not helping.

“We're all asking when's he gonna win the next major," he said. "And I suppose the way I would see it is there's a lot of mental scar tissue hanging around for him and that's going to affect his game.

“Golf is the most psychologically demanding sport individually of any other sport in the world.

“There is not a sport that is as psychologically demanding and the reason for that is you get sort of three four minutes between each shot and that means your mind has to be absolutely concentrated in that four minutes before you re-engage with the sport again. There is no other sport where you get that gap and you can ruminate about what's gone wrong.

“For a football match something's happening immediately. even as an F1 driver you have to think all the time what's gonna happen next.

“In golf that process has to be absolutely spot-on and I would argue there's things gone on in Rory's personal life, but also his professional life as well, which has not been conducive to him being successful.

“I'd tell him to take a few days off, if I'm honest, because it's like crashing a car. Heaven forbid anybody crashes a car, but you don't want to get it back on the road immediately. You need to work out why it's happened. So just trying to get him going again is not always helpful.

“If you are going to repair, we call it rupture and repair, if you're going to understand what's gone on, you have to understand the process of what has happened catastrophically. In sport it's called ‘choking’, of course. Why have you choked? You have to understand why you've choked.

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“Then you have to realise what you need to do next time. You go into a major tournament and then you have to practise that.

"Going straight back out there into another major or a big tournament, frankly, isn't helpful.”