Rory McIlroy’s jet-setting lifestyle as a professional golfer has its benefits and its drawbacks.
The 35-year-old has travelled the world amassing tournament wins and banking prize pots, but the overseas commitments involved in top-level sport give competitors little freedom in terms of where they spend their time.
McIlroy was born in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland in 1989. By 2007, while still a teenager, he turned pro, and just two years after that he became a winner on the European Tour. McIlroy would transition to the US-based PGA Tour in 2010 and begin spending much more of his time across the pond.
Just two years after that, McIlroy decided to put his glamorous, 2006-built Northern Ireland property on the market due to spending so much time away from his homeland. The sprawling property sits on 14 acres of land and boasts a gym, a tennis court, a driving range and a state-of-the-art golf practice area.
McIlroy asked for £2million when selling the house but the eventual buyer, former TV presenter Gary McCausland, is understood to have paid slightly less than that.
At the time of the purchase in 2013, McCausland called it an ‘amazing place’ and explained that the standard of the golf facilities made it a one-off opportunity.
When McIlroy bid farewell to what was once his dream mansion, he was already a two-time major winner. He added two more to his collection in 2014, winning the PGA Championship and The Open in the same season.
Though McIlroy decided to let go of his Northern Irish retreat, his living standards did not suffer. The 35-year-old moved to a luxurious home in Palm Beach, Florida, worth more than three times as much as his previous house.
In this year’s edition of the Sunday Times Rich List, McIlroy ranked 13th in the 40 richest people under the age of 40. Alongside his Floridian property, he put his reported £225million net worth to use by making another huge investment in a California mansion in 2019.
McIlroy is also believed to own an apartment in New York and a villa in the UAE. He wasn’t out of Northern Ireland for long, either, as he now owns a monster 200-acre estate in County Down which dates back to the 19th century.
