McLaughlin: How Oregon Ducks Football And Rory McIlroy Are (Mostly) The Same
By SPENCER McLAUGHLIN
Contributor, 750 The Game
Rory McIlroy picked up his 27th career win on Sunday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, finishing at 21-under par. It was a stellar performance from one of the best golfers of his generation, and of the last 20-30 years in general.
McIlroy has 4 major championships and 27 wins, joining an exclusive club in the last 30 years to reach those milestones. The other 2?
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
Rory is an all-time player who has had the sort of career that most every golfer in the world would envy. Even generationally great players like Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson have fewer major championships than Rory does. As McIlroy tapped in for par at the iconic 18th hole at Pebble Beach on Sunday, I was thinking about Oregon’s football program.
They’ve been in the top tier of college football for a long time. You can pinpoint the starting date as Chip Kelly’s arrival as head coach in the 2009 season, or go even further back to Joey Harrington’s magical season in 2001. Whichever date you pick for the Ducks escalating into the upper echelon of the sport, Oregon has been there for well over a decade at this point.
The Ducks just had the sort of season the majority of power 4 football programs only dream of having. 13-0, Big 10 Champions with a crack at Ohio State in the Rose Bowl Quarterfinal of the College Football Playoff. The Ducks came up short in ugly fashion, trailing 34-0 before scoring on the last play of the first half.
Those 30 minutes of football drained all of the joy that filled the hearts of countless Duck fans for 13 straight wins like slowly letting the air out of a balloon.
34-0 might have popped the balloons, but you get the idea.
Oregon had by all accounts a great season, except for one: they didn’t win the national championship. That elusive first title remained evasive yet again despite Oregon’s consistent presence as a top-tier program in the 2nd-most watched sport in the country.
The look on Rory McIlroy’s face on Sunday reminded me of how Oregon fans like myself felt after winning the Big 10 Championship. Happy, to be sure, but there was a look of longing on the face of the Northern Ireland native. One that I recall experiencing watching the green and yellow confetti fall in Indianapolis on December 7th as the Ducks won the Big 10 Championship.
The moment felt good, and was a real accomplishment. But it was one we had seen and felt before and it’s at the point where we’re ready for something we haven’t felt yet.
Golf and football aren’t directly comparable. Rory has 4 majors to his name in 3 different events: The PGA Championship (twice), the U.S. Open, and The Open Championship. Which one is missing?
The Masters, which as we hear every Spring truly is a “tradition unlike any other” as the only major played at the same course every year.
Rory doesn’t have a green jacket, the only thing standing between him and the career grand slam (a feat that has only been achieved by 5 golfers in the history of the sport). Oregon doesn’t have a national title in football, which for its program is the only pinnacle it hasn’t reached.
Oregon and Rory McIlroy have been at the top of their sports for a long time, but they’ve both been chasing one elusive goal for so long it’s easy to lose sight of how great they both are. Oregon won the Big 10, Rory picked up his 27th win at an iconic venue in Pebble Beach.
Yet all I was thinking about in both of those moments was the exact same thought:
When will they get the breakthrough they care about most?
Spencer McLaughlin is an Oregon Ducks football contributor to 750 The Game. He also hosts the “Locked On Oregon Ducks” and “Locked On College Football” podcasts and has work featured throughout the season here.