The quirky nature of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is such that nothing can ever be taken for granted, as Rory McIlroy has discovered to his cost.
McIlroy’s on-course deeds – winning two Majors, the British Open and the US PGA, as well as dominating the money lists on the European Tour and the PGA Tour and topping the official world rankings – made him an unbackable, odds-on favourite to capture the silver plated four-turret camera lens trophy . . . but even he couldn’t get his name engraved on the trophy as the final vote revealed, surprise, surprise, he had lost out to a man in a car.
McIlroy was voted runner-up to Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton who had outraced his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg to the championship in what was effectively a two-man race. In the public vote –online and by telephone – McIlroy was left in Hamilton’s slipstream.
Second best
And McIlroy – after a stellar year in which he became golf’s most dominant player – was left with that unfamiliar feeling of being second-best. And he wasn’t the first golfer to experience that feeling of losing out in the public vote.
After all, Darren Clarke – twice – was in the running for the award, in 2006 after his heroics in the Ryder Cup and then again in 2011 when winning the Claret Jug, only to come up short in the voting. That Zara Phillips, a member of Britain's Royal family, pipped Clarke in 2006 on the back of winning the world eventing championship was sufficiently whimsical to raise eyebrows.
And, let’s face it, golf hasn’t exactly exuded mass appeal in getting its superstars over the line. Since the first gong was awarded in 1954, only two golfers – Dai Rees in 1957 and Nick Faldo in 1989 – have managed to take the top accolade. In Rees’ case, it was for captaining the Britain and Ireland team to Ryder Cup success over the United States. So, history was not on McIlroy’s side.
What he did have on his side was a stunning dominance through 2014 of the game he plays: his capturing of the Claret Jug at Hoylake in July was followed with successes in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational – at which point he regained the world number one spot – and then the US PGA title.
McIlroy was seeking to become the fourth Irish sportsperson to accomplish the feat. In 1972, Olympian Mary Peters claimed the prize; in 1986, boxer Barry McGuigan, the world featherweight champion, came out on top; and, in 2010, Tony McCoy became the first jockey to be voted home as the BBC's sports personality after his Grand National win on Don't Push It. McIlroy, though, missed out and will have to wait for another year and another time to claim the award.
Near misses
Clarke’s near-misses would have warned McIlroy that favouritism doesn’t mean a thing. Indeed, Clarke’s own musings in advance of the 2006 vote – where he was unbeaten in Europe’s Ryder Cup win at The K Club just a matter of weeks after the death of his wife Heather – probably militated against him.
In the run-up to the 2006 awards, Clarke had observed: “It would be great if I’d just won a Major and was given Sports Personality of the Year. But what’s happening doesn’t sit comfortably with me. A lot of people believe I deserve it for what I’ve been through but a big part of me feels very different. I don’t want to throw people’s votes back in their faces but a larger part of me thinks I shouldn’t even be in contention.”
As it happened, Clarke – the odds-on favourite – finished second in the voting to Phillips. Then, in 2011, after he did win a Major, capturing the British Open, Clarke was again one of the favourites only to lose out – again finishing second – to cyclist Mark Cavendish.
If there was a huge element of surprise that McIlroy was pipped at the post by Hamilton, at least there was some consolation prize in that Paul McGinley, his captain in Europe’s retaining of the Ryder Cup, was voted Coach of the Year.
