‘This one’s for him’: Rory McIlroy emotionally dedicates Race to Dubai victory to his ill father

Rory McIlroy was understandably emotional when talking about how much a Record eighth Race to Dubai title intended for “a proud European”.

But it’s a question about his father, Gerry, who choked the 37-year-old.

DP World Tour reporter Tim Barter asked the victorious McIlroy: “Your father is recovering from health problems in America. How far in your thoughts were you today?”

“A lot,” McIlroy replied, rubbing the side of his face, his voice becoming shaky. “Yeah, a lot.”

“He’s been in hospital for two months. He had a huge operation at the end of September and he’s recovering well, fortunately,” McIlroy added.

“When I left to come here to the Middle East, I went to see him in Cleveland and he said, ‘Go win the Race to Dubai.’ And uh…”

With that, McIlroy tried his best not to break down and Barter helped him by telling him how proud Gerry would be of his son and ending the interview.

“Yeah,” McIlroy said, “this one’s for him.”

After receiving his eighth RTD trophy, tied with Colin Montgomerie on the all-time listMcIlroy went further during his all-media press conference about his father’s condition.

“It’s obviously been difficult. I mean, he’s been living with this for a while, 18 months, and it got to the point where the last resort was he needed a transplant. So he had a two-lung transplant in September. Luckily the surgery was a success and he’s recovering well,” McIlroy said.

“Yes, it’s been a stressful time for our family. I’ve been to Cleveland a lot because that’s where he is. I didn’t know if I was going to go to India because I spent nine days in the ICU with him while he was recovering. You know, if things weren’t as good as they were, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable traveling or being too far away.

“But he has an incredible team there, and the doctors and nurses are absolutely incredible, so I felt comfortable going to India and traveling knowing that I could obviously come back to him if I needed to, but he was obviously in wonderful hands.

“He’s recovering very steadily. I went to see him before leaving for Abu Dhabi a few weeks ago, and he said to me: ‘Rors, go win me the Race to Dubai.’

“So it was, you know, it was on my mind for the last couple of weeks, and I really wanted to do it for him and I know he’s in the hospital in his hospital bed, and he would have watched this morning. It was nice to be able to do it for him.”