It was one of these days; almost everything perfect, a nice round on a fabulous course, great service and amenities… so everything great till someone enters the room and ruins your day.

My employer invited me and some good customers to a small little golf tournament at The Grove, a prestigious resort north-west of London. We had a great time, the service was superb, the course really beautiful and we all had a lot of fun. After the round we had an opulent lunch, some drinks and were basically chit-chatting about our achievements during the day. So far so good…

At some point one of the staff members entered the private room, asked if we were all good or whether he could do something for us. We neglected and said we’re having a good time. The next sentence he said, was something like: “Ah, and just to let you know, Rory McIlroy already left…”

He looked into 30 astonished faces, we had no idea Rory was even there. As it turned out Rory McIlroy was, 50 meters away, practising on the range for 2 hours and had, as the official part, the EA Sports Crossbar Challenge to play. It made me want to tear my hair off. Rory just around the corner, ready for some autographs or even some down-to-earth talking… that would have been the ultimate icing on the cake!

And I remember me saying to myself during warm-up: why the heck is there a football goal on the range…

End of the story: I went home, glumy and all what was left was this youtube video I found in the evening: