Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his shot on the first hole during the final round of the World Golf Championships at Trump National Doral Blue Monster Course on Sunday in Doral, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Save for the rare error here and there, watching Rory McIlroy play golf is like witnessing a great work of art. Well, Golf Digest took that simile and interpreted it literally to produce the April cover of the magazine, which feature McIlroy looking quite a bit like Michaelangelo’s Statue of David.
“We were sitting around brainstorming and wondered if there was a famous person in history who we could emulate to turn Rory into something,” Golf Digest’s Creative Director Ken DeLago said in a conversation with Editor-in-Chief Jerry Tarde the magazine explained. “That’s when Jerry was like, ‘Yeah, what about David?’ ”
Golf Digest’s creative team lit up. Per Golf Digest’s Ashley Mayo:
Sure, McIlroy weighs just 160 pounds and isn’t even six feet tall, but like David, he’s chiseled. His transformation from chubby teen to ripped athlete these past few years has been remarkable, and McIlroy is still going.
Of course, not wanting to go full frontal, the cover covered the statue’s/McIlroy’s below-waist bits with a kilt, which begs the question, “Um, but isn’t McIlroy Irish?”
Yes, he is. And it turns out, while kilts are most stereotypically associated with Scotland, they are also worn in Ireland.
The magazine reveals they rented the kilt featuring the “Irish National” tartan, as well as a sporran (the traditional a pouch worn with kilts) and shot it on a model before digitally rendering it on McIlroy, where replicas of his clubs, belt and watch were then added.
The eye-catching cover is accompanied by an in-depth cover story about the 25-year-old athlete, who opens up a bit about his breakup with tennis sensation Caroline Wozniaki. He attributes the end of their engagement to his redefined focus — and newly defined abs.
“After [the breakup], I thought, What else do I have in my life?” he told Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz. “I have family and friends, but they’re always going to be there. What else? That’s when I decided, You know what, I’m just going to immerse myself in golf for a while. I spent more time at it, thought about it more, spent more time at the range and at the gym. Because that’s all I had, and that’s all I wanted to do.”
Marissa Payne writes for The Early Lead, a fast-breaking sports blog, where she focuses on what she calls the “cultural anthropological” side of sports, aka “mostly the fun stuff.” She is also an avid WWE fan.
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