Greg Allen on Rory McIlroy's rise, awkward interviews, and favourite sporting moments

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0:30The Mario Rosenstock Podcast. Thanks to HUM. Finance made easy when you shop tech, electrical, appliances, kitchens and much more. Flexify Europe Limited, trading as HUM is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Coming up on this episode of the Mario Rosenstock Podcast. And I've been very lucky to be right in front of these people directly after their success or their disappointment. Equally, you get great interviews, sometimes confessional in terms of their disappointment, equally ecstatic because of their joy. And it's one of the reasons why I've always been drawn towards individual sport is because of that intelligence and that introspection and that level of analysis among people who play sport where they are dependent solely on themselves for win, lose or draw.

1:24So this is the second part of my conversation with Greg Allen, one of Ireland's most recognisable voices, I think it's fair to say, when it comes to RTE's coverage of golf and athletics, two sports which are on the up in Ireland for the last number of years. Greg has covered 10 Olympic Games, every World Athletics Championship since 1993, and each European Athletics Championship since 1990. 90 major golf championships, 16 Ryder Cups, 100 international events and domestic ones too. The list goes on. In this part of our conversation, Greg shares his early memories of watching Rory McIlroy play and where he thinks his career might be headed now.

2:00Stories about his interviews with famous golfers, including Jack Nicklaus. And I hit him with a quick fire round of questions at the end about his favourite sports person, most memorable sporting moment and lots more. Rory was 15 and a half, 16 at the time. and Rory hit the ball and I saw immediately my gosh, where's that power coming from? And you could hear the sound of the ball off the club face, the perfect click which means that he's sent to the club at impact. And then you go out down the fairway and you look at where the balls have landed. This was a phenomenal ball striker. They had got samples of the McEnroe shirts, the Sergio Dacini shirts, the one with the blue stripe across it and the other one with the red and black stripes down the sleeves.

2:39Two samples in my size. I had to have them. I decided to be kind of nice to him and ask him, oh, well, what's your favorite hole in Mount Juliet, you know? He says, well, I like the first hole and I like the second hole. So he goes through all 18 holes. Three and a half minutes of my five-minute interview is gone. I did follow Rory McIlroy for the last three holes of the US Open in 2011. And I also spoke to him directly after he had absolutely had that extraordinarily bad experience in the Masters just two months earlier. And in the emotion of it all, the redemption of it all I just thought it was amazing that he won that US Open in the way that he did and I also got to interview him on the 18th green so it's a bit personal in that regard There's more great stories and sporting insights coming up on this one folks so stay tuned but obviously it's World Cup fever at the moment and David McWilliams is doing what David McWilliams does best on the David McWilliams podcast Okay David ready to go?

3:32I'm ready to rock as usual John It's a World Cup special David okay just keep it simple nice and easy Absolutely Let's do this And we are, go, cue David. Here we go. How you doing? David here and the World Cup is upon us, John. Oh, it's brilliant, isn't it? Brilliant. And of course, when I think of the World Cup, I find that it's very analogous to the world economy. Yeah, actually it is. The countries at the top boasting great resources and riches when it comes to talent. Of course. And they generate multiple goals towards achieving their ends. Very funny. And then at the bottom, you have the developing countries.

4:14Yes. Also rich in resources, but somehow still locked out from the main event, knocking on the door, trying to achieve these great riches. Step it up with the big countries. Yeah, like Congo and Ghana, etc. But when I think of the World Cup as well, I really remember Italian 19. Do you remember that, John? Who can forget, yeah, I know. And the mean streets are bleeding, doggy. What are you doing? Yeah, I came in back to Linden Village, puking me ring up into Coleymore Harbour. Absolute globules of vomit all over the place. Stop it now, Aaron. And I remember the night of the quarterfinal as well, John.

4:49Jesus. Yeah, the scumbags from Sorrento Terrace came down with the street blades. I don't need this, you know. And the bottles of dolly chin, do you? Look. Well, I got me boots on, John. Steel caps and all. and I went in studs up on those fuckers in Voico Road. You're dreaming it. Some rich prick called Faker of Clandillons. There's no such person. Just a scalatch his goal went in the back of the fucking onion bag. You're mentally ill. Broke his fucking nose. Blood pumping out of him like a fucking gusher all over his living shirt from Hugo Boss. You're deluded. You couldn't tell the fucking red from the fucking Pimbs on him.

5:26I'd get lost. Boxed the hell out of his own crew. Burn the whole fucker Blaze Down so I did John John And exclusive new comedy Every week on the Mario Rosenstock podcast Mario Rosenstock at gmail.com If you want to make contact with me I read them all And I get back to nearly all of them And you can get in contact with me about anything You can advise me on Who I might have on the podcast Comedy sketches that you'd like to hear me do Or new comedy characters that I haven't been doing That you'd like to see me do because it's much more of an open free for all on this. I'd like to take advice from you on where to go with certain things.

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6:35They can help you make your purchases and pay back in bite-size, easy payments. It couldn't be easier. So if you're looking to splash out on something nice for dad on Father's Day, maybe some new DIY gear, robotic lawnmower, wearables, et cetera, whatever it is, Home has got you covered. And we thank Home for getting involved, not only in podcasting but in our particular podcast. Okay, thank you, Holm. So, we left part one of my chat with RTE's Greg Allen just as we were about to talk about Rory McIlroy and Greg's early memories of watching him play as a teenager right up to interviewing him after tournaments that went well and those that went very badly.

7:10So let's pick it up right from there. Another really intelligent guy, Rory McIlroy. Yeah. I mean, what is it about him? We love watching him. We just love watching him because he's got that, it's just, it's that there's some players have charisma and I don't mean their charisma when they talk. They play charismatically. Federer plays charismatically. Tiger played charismatically. Rory plays charismatically. You can't take their eyes off them when they play because you're not quite sure what's coming. But you are convinced it might be disastrous or transcendent. yeah I always remember the first time I saw Rory McIlroy it was in Carton House Irish Amateur Open 2005 and I wandered out to the 9th tee to see this new young prodigy and he was playing alongside a Scottish amateur called Andrew MacArthur who was a big hitting player big guy and also Nigel Edwards who was the Walker Cup captain and Nigel Edwards himself was a fantastic player and Rory was just he was either about to turn 16 or he was 15, 16 he was in that territory he wasn't more than 15 and a half 16 at the time and Rory hit the ball and I saw immediately my gosh where's that power coming from I'm not even following the flight of the ball at this stage and you could hear the sound of the ball off the club face the perfect click which means that he's sent to the club at impact and then you go out down the fairway and you look at where the balls have landed and Nigel Edwards' ball is about 20 yards behind Rory Nigel Edwards, not a very big guy, but an awful lot bigger than Rory was at the time.

8:54Rory was about, as they say, he was still growing. He was about five foot six, nine and a half stone, maybe. And Andrew McArthur was only 10 yards past Rory, and he was a big hitter. So where's that power coming from? And to this day, I always say, yep, it was there, you know, in the honing of his natural ability by his coach, Michael Bannon, from age eight or nine or whatever it was when Michael saw him first. This was a phenomenal ball striker. and by ball strike I mean from tee to green and it's like he worked extraordinarily hard at the other parts of his game when others possibly weren't working quite as hard this is the old chipping the ball into the washing machine on the Jerry Kelly show he was doing that so he was he was just in that almost Tiger Woods territory of becoming a method actor type golfer trying to become as proficient as he was at 15 but trying to do it 11 and 12 and 13 years of age.

9:48Completely dedicated. Now other players will have done it but you add in his talent level and you see the player that he is right now. But even back then in Carton House or so I'm striding down the fairway with that jaunty walk and it was just a lot of self-confidence that he knew what he was doing. And that's an awful lot. That's why we like him as well because we can read his emotions by the way he walks. Yeah, because Rory's got the jaunt in his walk. It's less obvious now. He's careful. He's a mature individual now. He's been told. He learns. he learns don't be giving away your body language everybody can see it yeah don't I mean the whole that means your competitors can see it don't be dropping the shoulders and putting your head down so dropping the shoulders and putting your head down when you're playing badly and then walking too jauntily when you're playing well you know you're right show the old poker face maybe a bit more of that and he does he's got the poker face now yeah how many will he win?

10:39I think he'll get to 8 or 9 I've had to think about this because clearly in the aftermath of winning the Masters in 2025 he went into after the initial exaltation which is extraordinary and I was very lucky to interview him in a matter of two hours after the final putt went in and that level of relief and joy I've never seen almost in anybody maybe Podrick in Carnoustie in 2007 And it was bound to have an effect Yeah, but like Podrick won in extraordinary circumstances in 2007 because of the fact that he nearly threw it away in the final hole and then won in the playoff and Rory obviously had an even greater level of bursting out of the shell and becoming, you know, a completely fulfilled golfer.

11:22But as a result of becoming completely fulfilled, becoming someone who's won the career Grand Slam, he then goes into this what next sort of territory in terms of motivation and is around this time last year, US Open time, when he really hit, I suppose, maybe the lowest part of what do I do next. But the great thing about 2025 was that there was the Open in Royal Portrush. He had to get up for that and if you're going to have a chance of getting back up back on the horse that was a really good opportunity to do so and he finished 7th in Portrush in front of the adoring home crowd and that helped him get back up and start thinking where his next focus was and then the Irish Open came along in September when he holed a 25 foot putt for Eagle on the final hole to get into a playoff in front of a crowd which was just full of young adoring fans and he felt that vibe and I think he even said it you know quite recently that that was one of the biggest things of 2025 for him that moment because this was like a cathartic sort of experience of breaking away from having achieved the career grand slam and now becoming the next phase rory mccleroy 3.0 version whatever it is and then the rider cup was the the real icing on what was a cake that was fully baked by the time he stepped away from from beth page because the rider cup was so dramatic they staggered across the line but they had dominated the Americans for two days and he was the player who had you know taken the hate from the crowd it was like he absorbed all the hate from the crowd on behalf of a lot of the players although the rest of them got a fair bit of it but he got the biggest brunt of it but he took all of those punches and he did his part as a player and I think when he emerged from that the whole picture of what had happened after the Masters of you know with a slight you know, drop in motivation was gone by the time he had completed Portrush, the Irish Open victory and Bethpage.

13:12And now we're seeing, to answer your question, how many majors will he go to? He's a different sort of perspective now. It's not that everything from here on is the icing on the cake. He wants to do things. He wants to win an Olympic gold medal. He wants to win an Open at St. Andrews. That's the opportunity will come next year. I think that's very interesting, actually. Sorry, you continue. But I think that's very interesting that the Olympic gold medal in golf has grown in stature. When it started, I think it was disregarded. And now I think, this is only my opinion, I think that people, the players regard the Olympic gold medal as really something to be got.

13:47Yeah, I think it's, well it's had now three goals. 2016 which was a very successful tournament in Brazil and everybody thought it wasn't going to be. And then 2021 was, Rory said he never tried so hard to finish third in a tournament in his life and he really He got it from that point onwards. And he had a chance in Paris as well. A very good chance. So look, if you want the full set, remember that it's not now when we judge a player's career. It's probably 10 years after he retires. And 10 years after he retires, maybe when he's in his mid-50s or whatever, 60s, goodness knows, the Olympic gold medal could be the biggest thing in golf by then.

14:29We don't know how history will develop the Olympic gold medal in golf. I don't think it will be the biggest thing in golf but it could be the fourth the fifth biggest thing in golf outside of the majors I think you can track it because Djokovic talks about the Olympic gold medal all the time whereas tennis when it started in the Olympics wasn't wasn't no but now it is yeah so and I think what they've identified is it's just a natural process of evolution it only comes once every four years yeah so this is part of it it's very rare yeah so there's a rarity there's four Wimbledons in the meantime.

15:04There are 16 majors, but there's only one Olympics. And also as well, I think we talk about golf and tennis as being part of the Olympic Games as being something new. They actually go back to the original Olympic Games as well. I'm not sure golf was in the original Olympics, but tennis was in 1896. John Pius Boland won a gold medal for Ireland. Oh my God, right. You know, so tennis and golf do have an Olympic lineage. It's not like they've been sort of put in in the last 20, 30 years as their only appearance in the Olympic Games. So that gold medal in the Olympics will, I think, build and build in stature.

15:40You, or I have it right in your notes here that one of the most intimidating interviews you've ever done is with Jack Nicholson. Or Jack Nicklaus. Actually, no, if it was Jack Nicholson it probably would have been even more so. Jack Nicklaus. Yeah. Was it? Yeah, because when I was growing up, I wasn't a golfer growing up, I played a lot of pitch and putt and I also played a lot of tennis and like everyone else I played soccer and gaming football and rugby all of them badly but Nicholas was a bit of a hero of mine I don't know why necessarily but it was like there were big names in the world of sport and Jack Nicholas was one of them like it was in my world it was Johnny Giles it didn't get much more bigger than Johnny Giles but Nicholas was one of those figures of the 19 when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s who was just such a big name And when I got a chance to interview him for the one and only time in 1993, he had designed Mount Juliet.

16:34Mount Juliet was a Nicholas Signature course. I think he paid six site visits. And in the last one of those, which was to launch the course before the first Irish Open was staged there in 93, a lot of letters back and forth were between RTE and Nicholas's management company to organize an interview. Eventually, we got promised a 10 minute interview. on the day of the actual launch he was busy doing other things and the agent came across and said it'll be five minutes so we're given five minutes with Jack Nicklaus to go through his entire career you know so we go in and it's funny we I thought we'd be given sort of a room on our own but we're actually given this little shed type of thing out in the which was an actual I was a temporary office the room was about nine feet by nine feet it was tiny and there was loads of files it was not what you expect for a room to actually be Jack Nicklaus.

17:24Point of the story and the size of the room was that we start the interview and the previous Masters, Chip Beck had done something which was quite extraordinary. He decided not to go for the 15th green in two when he had a good drive, when he could have reached the green and he needed to have a chance of winning. And it was a big talking point. He laid up and he made his par when he should have gone for the green in two and try and make birdie to try and have a chance of winning. And Nicklaus addressed that and we were doing the interview and I kind of was talking to him in the preamble to it.

17:58But I said, before I get to that difficult question, what would you have done in that situation, Jack? I decided to be, you know, kind of nice to him and ask him, oh, well, what's your favourite hole in Mount Juliet, you know? He says, well, I like the first hole, and I like the second hole. So he goes through all 18 holes. Three and a half minutes of my five-minute interview is gone. And then I asked a chip question and the interview goes on and we're only given five minutes and after six minutes knock knock knock on the door which is right beside both of us because it's such a small little space and everything is wood where we are so it makes a big rattle and I said I'm keeping going here and then the door opens again with a big knock and it's opening and Jack's foot moves towards the door and closes it and I went on and finished the interview did ten minutes which we were originally promised and he said something very nice.

18:54I said, thank you very much for joining us here. And he said, that was really interesting. And we walked away and I said, the class of the man really, really struck me that he had overruled his minders and given me the full 10 minutes because I had been, I suppose, polite enough to ask him a question about Mount Juliet and the first answer. But I remember how nervous I was being in front of someone, like in a room, and this is Jack Nicklaus. And I'm in a room and this is me and him. Yeah, I know. And I remember just being terrified. Blonde hair. And that flash of blonde hair. The handshake, very small hand, really, really tight grip.

19:29And in fact, you know, he was so undaunting for someone I was so daunted by. Yeah. He was brilliant. I loved him after that because, and I've, you know, thought so highly of him. And whenever I'm asked the question, you know, the greatest of all time, is it Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus? Nicholas is a better record Woods did play a game that was beyond anybody's game in the history of golf I've got a better answer for you and it comes from my friend John Duggan in News Talk and John great great presenter on News Talk during the weekends of the sport and big sports and politics guy and John always he's good for coming up with his own like he doesn't borrow other people's theories he'll have his own you know and he went Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time.

20:18But Jack Nicklaus is the greatest champion. And there's a slightly different, there's a slight difference because there's a difference between being a great golfer and a great champion in all sorts of ways. And for John, and I understand what he's saying, Nicklaus represents being a great champion. Whereas Tiger represents this outstanding, audacious golf talent. But there's a difference. I think Tiger Woods had more shots than anybody in the game and there wasn't a weakness in his game until he developed a bit of a weakness in his driving late on in his career. There was always a chance that his driving could be a problem for him but it began to become a real problem for him in the latter part of his career.

21:01And we're talking about Tiger in the past tense now who knows he could make the comeback of all comebacks very unlikely at this stage with the injuries that he has. Nicholas' record is 18 major wins but also 19 seconds and 9 thirds. Laid them all down side by side it's about 11 years of not finishing outside at the top 3 yeah Tigers record doesn't come close no it doesn't and the other thing that what I mean by what John means by a champion is as well as that they'd go Jack I mean how did you how hard was it to win majors and you go easy it's way easy to win a major than it was to win the Canadian Open why because everybody thinks they can win the Canadian Open and what are you saying in the Masters only about 3 or 4 of us think we can actually win it so he was only playing 3 or 4 guys yeah because coming down the last 9 3 of them five of them are going to blow up.

21:45And he just said, all I had to do was wait. Yeah. And there's another thing about Nicholas, those 19 second place finishes meant that he didn't always get the job done. And not every one of those 19 second place finishes would have been a real chance to win. He might have run into second place or he might have lost the tournament. And he may have choked. And there's times where he'll admit himself that he didn't make the right decisions at the right time. But the class of the man in defeat is you'll see him so warmly congratulating the champion and the famous duel in the sun in 1977, Tom Watson himself going at it, you know, in an incredible tournament.

22:22I advise anybody to watch the highlights on YouTube, even watch the whole darn thing. It is an amazing duel and anybody who says that golf now is so much more in depth, but it might be, but there weren't as, there may not be as many champions of the quality of character that he had to compete against. He had to compete against Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, Ray Floyd, and, you know, Gary Player. Like, these were all proven major champions. So while the field that he competed against may not have been as strong in terms of 50th or 60th or 70th in the field, the core of players that he played against in the top 10 were all multiple major winners who knew how to get the job done.

23:05And I would argue that he, you know, that that was as hard a thing to do as what Tiger did. Yeah. and the handshake as well with Tony Jacklin yeah the concession the class of that in a way just sums up Jack Nicklaus the 1969 Ryder Cup when the United States and Britain and Ireland as it was at the time have the match in Birkdale in 1616 I think it was the score and Nick Nicklaus conceded a two foot put to Tony Jacklin yeah it's debatable was it one and a half feet was it two feet it didn't matter it was a missable put when the entire Ryder Cup depended on it. But in actual fact, because the match finished in a half, the United States retained the trophy in any case.

23:48But it was still a great gesture. Who's your favourite sports person? And I'm afraid it has to be one name. So it'd be Irish or international. I don't give a damn. It could be Yif to the Shifter for all I care. John McEnroe. Wow! That's a great answer. Yeah, I love John McEnroe. When I was a tennis player, a bit of a tennis player, had all the gear but none of the talent. I remember one of my first paychecks, I worked in the civil service, I was wandering down Grafton Street and wandered for no reason into Brown Thomas because I certainly couldn't afford anything in Brown Thomas except when I saw what I saw.

24:25They had got samples of the McEnroe shirts, the Sergio Dakini shirts, the one with the blue stripe across it and the other one with the red and black stripes down the sleeves. Two samples in my size. I had to have them. I emptied my bank account to get them. It's so funny that you say that because right when you were looking at those, I was buying Fila by Borg. Really? By God. And I actually went out last year. I think it was two years ago. I didn't have the pecs for the Fila gear. Did you see Borg wearing the Fila gear? It was a bit too fitted for me. No, but I went on vintage websites there last two years ago and I got the old vintage Borg tracksuit, the red one.

25:02It's so classy. Like, it's so classy because they're kind of in vogue now again. They would be in vogue. That would look good nowadays. Not on me, but on him. Well, vintage, vintage. There's a big revival of vintage gear now. Okay, favourite commentator? I love Jimmy McGee. It has to be one ring. I love Jimmy McGee for what he taught me as well as what I perceived, but David Coleman. Wow, yeah, great. Yeah, because David Coleman, he could do everything. Torshack, 1-0! I love Brian Moore as well, who I always thought was his competitor. And I love Match of the Day back in the time because he always wanted to be able to stay up late enough to watch it.

25:38Barry Davis is a fantastic commentator as well Peter O'Sullivan in the horse racing and obviously Peter Alice because he's peerless Dan Maskell in tennis because he had a plummy accent but ooh I say and you know sometimes when you're watching television ooh I say is all you need or whatever your particular I used to love there was a co-commentator that there was a co-commentator who used to work with Dan Maskell towards the end of Maskell's BBC stuff and he was a famous British tennis player from the early days, from the 60s, called Mark Cox. And Mark Cox used to sort of develop a side niche during the match.

26:21But when the players would sit down, he'd sort of go into what they're thinking. And I remember, and Maskell would be there, well, there's Lendl. Lendl leads three games to two. Becker looking very, very, very good mark and mark will go well there he is the wretched lendl the vampire of transphalia will he ever ever win look at his forlorn eyes almost tears dripping onto his cheek and there the teutonic becker sipping effortlessly at his diet coke he knows the championship with remains within his grasp and the poverty-stricken Lendl wretched. And you're going is this some sort of masterclass in psychology that we're supposed to be getting?

27:10Because all Dan's going oh I see. Dan was probably a little less loquacious than Mark Cox. Cox played in the Irish Open in 73. That's right yeah. I didn't know 73 but we have lots of pictures in the tennis club of all these players playing in Ireland. Favourite sporting moment? I'm making this up now. Really? Favourite sporting moment? Because you could go like Ireland going to a penalty in Genoa. You could say that. Yeah. Or you could go Lassie Verne coming in the 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 metres. So it could be any moment. It's not a moment that many would pick. Yeah. But I did follow Rory McIlroy for the last three holes of the US Open in 2011.

27:53And I also spoke to him directly after he had absolutely had that extraordinarily bad experience in the Masters just two months earlier. And in the emotion of it all, the redemption of it all, I just thought it was amazing that he won that US Open in the way that he did. And I also got to interview him on the 18th green. So it's a bit personal in that regard. But, you know, you're talking about a player who had a possible career-breaking experience in the Masters in 2011 and then to come back and win the US Open. Can I share a secret with you? Go on. I don't think I've ever said this. It's not very important.

28:24I won£1 ,200 on Rory on the 2011 US Open. Wow. I put 150 quid and I rarely, I rarely, I would rarely do it. Yeah. I had so, I just had this very, very strong feeling, emotional feeling that the emotion, I took a risk. I just felt that after what happened to him in the Masters, I sort of took this feeling of whatever was happening. I got the feeling that he had got it out of his system and that this, that wasn't going to be constrained, that it wasn't going to haunt him. It might haunt him in Augusta. But that's something that got it out of his system. And that somewhere soon, this gushing of talent, like an outpouring, a gushing of talent was going to, my word, reveal itself to the world.

29:14And I remember crying when Rory was coming down the last few holes, not because I'd won money, not at all. It was because I just, I was overcome with emotion at seeing the revealing of talent. I think it was so beautiful. Just to see the revelation in front of you come to your eyes. On Father's Day and his father who had done so much for him worked all those jobs and he is coming down and what was so beautiful about Rory's victory was the tournament was won for an hour and yet he still started pouring it on pouring it on pouring on the talent. And I think it's because of what had happened in the Masters that made that extraordinary.