Rory McIlroy celebrates his 27th birthday in the knowledge he’s worth close to half-a-billion dollar.
McIlroy will blow out the candles on his birthday Wednesday at Quail Hollow in North Carolina and venue for Thursday’s starting Wells Fargo Championship.
McIlroy is the defending champion and it’s also the last occasion he won in the States.
And McIlroy could not have chosen a better Tour stop than Quail Hollow to celebrate his 27th birthday.
Rory McIlroy turns 27 – Happy birthday to the four-time Major winner.
Aside from four wins in two separate Dubai events on the European Tour, McIlroy has only won twice anywhere else in the world at that was at Quail Hollow.
It was his USA victory starting point in 2010 that has seen McIlroy win two of the three US-based Majors and two of the three Stateside located WGC titles.
Then in banking the 2015 Wells Fargo title, McIlroy was a class apart shooting a blistering third round of an 11-under par 61 to break his old 2010 18-hole record of a 62.
And in grabbing his 11th PGA Tour title, he also broke seven event records including posting a new 72-hole tournament low in winning by winning by seven shots, while he equalled two other Wells Fargo records.
Rory McIlroy getting used to teeing off last on day one at the Masters.
“Last year, I was just in control of the golf tournament and I just needed to shoot a solid final round after that 61 and that’s all I needed to get me over the line,” he recalled.
“I accomplished a lot of things that week and it would be nice this week if I could repeat the same given we are really coming into the most important part of the season.”
It was only in late 2007 McIlroy stood at the back of the 18th green at St. Andrews watching Scotland’s Paul Lawrie putting for birdie on the last day of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
McIlroy remarked at the time: “If Paul misses this putt, that’s my Tour card.”
Lawrie missed the putt leaving McIlroy in third place and with the prize-money, and in just his second Tour event as a pro, enough to secure full playing rights.
Since then McIlroy’s won three Majors, two WGC crowns, two DP World Tour Championship victories, three European No. 1 titles along with another 11 tournaments around the world.
In fact, McIlroy’s world stature is no more evident having won in six nations on four contents.
And banking sponsors Wells Fargo would dearly love to be handling McIlroy’s credit accounts.
McIlroy has earned Euro 28.5m in European Tour counting events and while he’s officially banked $US 29.8m on the PGA Tour event.
His Major triumphs in 2011 and 2012 landed him a contract with Nike said at the time to worth about Euro 10m a year.
But since then he’s won another two Majors and signed super-lucrative deals with Swiss watch giant, Omega, Santander, Bose and EA Sports.
So much so, that as he blows out the candles on his 27th birthday, McIlroy’s conservatively estimated to be worth nearly half-a-billion US dollars.
“That amount of money doesn’t sort of mean much to me anymore,” he said recently.
“Yes, it’s sitting in the bank and if I want to buy something nice, I will. It’s not really anything that … I mean like it’s nice to think that you could win 10 million dollars in one week, but that’s not what excites me.”
Anyway a very happy 27th birthday, Rory.
