We’ve just gone and thrown all of our Pussycat Dolls C.D’s out the window in protest
Not that we’re bitter or anything but we’re scratching our heads as to how Rory McIlroy was beaten to this year’s BBC Sports Personalty of the Year award by Lewis Hamilton.
The F1 driver claimed this year’s world title against pretty much one other driver, and was in the best car in the best team all year. But like we said, we’re not bitter.
Twitter has gone loo-la over the decision but at least we know he’ll definitely be playing golf for us now at the Olympics in Rio eh!
McIlroy has had an amazing 2014 that saw him add to his Major haul and help Europe in their Ryder cup success as well as hitting possibly one of the greatest shots of all time at Valhalla.
Not bad for a lad who hadn’t a tour win in all of 2013 in Europe or the US.
We’ve taken a look back at some of the reasons that he should have won the award tonight.
The comeback king
McIlroy’s season came alive in May of this year when he staged an incredible comeback to beat Thomas Bjorn by one stroke at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth after starting the final day seven behind the Swede.
One of the highlights of the weekend was this eagle on day one at the seventh:
The month would end with a bit of stress in his personal life but we’ll get to that later.
A golfer has never had a better three weeks
McIlroy is a man you feel isn’t short of confidence and often does his best work in the chase. His victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational was achieved when hunting down old pal Sergio Garcia who started the last day with a three shot lead. But when a player can shoot a ball through ‘a half-open window’ then what hope have you got.
This win came in-between the two Major successes and McIlroy showed class and mental strength to deal with the circus surrounding him and his golf for an amazing success.
He won by two from the Spaniard-this birdie on the opener helping him start the final day on a super note :
British Open title win at Royal Liverpool shows Rory’s got a better sense of humour than Hamilton
Rory might be a Manchester United fan but he sure enjoyed his time on Merseyside this summer.
He even had the cheek to joke about it in his winning speech after he beat Sergio Garcia and Rickie Fowler to the third major of his career.
He led from start to finish to claim the Claret Jug and the booing was more comical than serious:
McIlroy produced one of the greatest golf shot of all time at the USPGA title win at Valhalla
Rory followed up his win at the Open with success at the World Golf championship and then arrived at the USPGA at Valhalla in tremendous form.
No one expected him to win back-to-back Majors but McIlroy brushed aside any talk of pressure or fatigue to give an asbolute masterclass.
This shot to make an Eagle at 10 is one of those ‘where were you moments’ in sport:
Ryder Cup success as part of a team
Golf is normally a solo sport like F1 but when it comes to being involved in a team and standing up for your continent then Rory wasn’t found wanting.
McIlroy and Graeme McDowell are great buddies (don’t mention the court case, OK?) and it showed at the Ryder Cup in the autumn when they seemed to have the biggest laugh ever while beating the shambolic Americans.The lads celebrated with a bottle of bubbly afterwards:
One reason why he might not have won
This is the only category that we conceded Lewis Hamilton may have the edge on Roy and that’s in the love life department. Hamilton has the very talented Nicole Scherzinger on his arm while Rory had a very public spilt with Caroline Wozniacki.
It all came crashing down in May and the announcement from McIlroy was a bare three liner: ‘The problem is mine. The wedding invitations issued at the weekend made me realise that I wasn’t ready for all that marriage entails. I wish Caroline all the happiness she deserves and thank her for the great times we’ve had’.
The tennis player revealed later that McIlroy did the break-up in a fairly quick and rough kinda way with a quick phone call with Wozniacki responding to the break up with this tweet:
It's a hard time for me right now.Thanks for all the sweet messages!Happy I support Liverpool right now because I know I'll never walk alone
— Caroline Wozniacki (@CaroWozniacki) May 22, 2014
Heartbroken and a Liverpool fan … not a good May for her.
Weirdly both are now doing much better in their respective sports than they ever did when a couple. Not that that proves anything at all.
The single best reason to give him the SPOTY
We mentioned earlier that he hit an unbelievable shot to the 10th at Valhalla.
Being honest this was probably just as good but it didn’t win him a major.
In September at the Tour Championship, McIlroy teed off but went left and the ball ended up in a spectators pocket.
To be fair the Irishman handled it well but what else could he do.
You wouldn’t get this if Lewis Hamilton drove into the back of your Micra with his big fancy F1 car would you:
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