The Land of Re-Enchantment

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled into this wonderful quote by C.S. Lewis. It is about bicycles, but it is barely (and I mean barely) about bicycles.

There are other — probably better — ways to describe the career and life of Rory McIlroy, and I have explored many (maybe even most) of them.

But on Sunday, after he went eagle-birdie-birdie-birdie to win the Irish Open for the second time, this was the one that stood out to me. The one I immediately thought of.

Watch this.

Rory kind of stumbles through his first quote in an interview with Sky, unable to look at the person interviewing him and to really engage the questions.

You can always tell when he’s about to fall apart.

Here’s what he said.

But that wasn’t even the best thing he said. That came in the next quote when he summed up the way I feel about golf, which is that, yes, wins matter and history matters and strokes gained and championship putts and all of that matter. But ultimately, they are shadows of the moments that matter most.

There are innumerable things I have enjoyed about covering Rory McIlroy’s career. The list is lengthy and could legitimately take up a book.

But the through line for me — and the one I have written about quite often — is the preservation of his own joy. For the game, for the sport, for the life he gets to live, for the world he inhabits.

Success in adulthood dulls even the most exuberant youthfulness. Even the highest levels of achievement become normalized.

Think about your own life. When you were 17 — if you were anything like me — making even $1,000 at a job made me feel I was a millionaire. And now, probably all of us are beyond that, have gone on to at least at times thrive, whether that’s financially or in other areas of life. And yet, how rarely do we think about, consider, recognize and state that fact out loud. How often do we exude gratitude?

For me, the answer is … not as often as I should. For Rory, it seems, the answer is … more frequently than most.

I asked him about this once. How does he maintain his love for a game and a career that just constantly beats it out of you? He said that this has not always been the case but as his career has gone on, he’s tried to get better at it.

This was from the summer of 2022.

In his 30s, Rory's disenchantment and re-enchantment with the golf has consistently ebbed and flowed. Winning helps, certainly. But winning — unlike that ubiquitous Nike ad — does not take care of everything.

There is something in his heart, though, that receives the re-enchantment, even if he is sometimes quick to forget it (just as he was in the months after winning the Masters). It is — we all know people like this — easier to harden one’s heart against such things. Life becomes less complicated because to be re-enchanted with anything is to once again risk being heartbroken.

Rory undoubtedly lives a charmed life. And yes, there are missteps. There are mistakes. There are moments and seasons I’m sure he’d love to have back. But the through line has always been joy. Delight. Genuine gratitude. That he gets to be Rory. That he got all the gifts. That people still, even after all those years, are there to see him and to watch that.

Cynicism with the world seems to be a natural drift for us all. I feel it. Maybe you do, too. You likely do too. Re-enchantment with this place and these people? It seems silly, maybe even foolish at times. But what joy it leads to. What depth it brings about.

Let’s wrap it up with another Lewis quote. One of my favorites of all time. One that seems to apply here and probably to some other places if we think about it long enough.

It is about stories and people. It is about Rory, and it’s also not.

We all had dreams as kids. Most of them probably never came true. Not as many as Rory realized. But some of them did for us, too.

The question I am asking myself today: Am I enjoying the wonder of the world as much as my childhood self thought I would have?

I have lost the enchantment, sure, because enchantment belongs to children. But the re-enchantment?

That belongs to us all.