By Larry Canning
The Thin Green Line – at the risk of exposing this title and having Steven Spielberg, or Martin Scorsese steal it, I’m publicly announcing I have begun writing a script for a short movie about the extraordinary love hate relationship between Augusta National Golf Course and Rory McIlroy. As with all blockbusters based on the truth, the truth can be in the eyes of the creator.
It begins in an average middle class home somewhere in Northern Ireland with a cute little kid with a Nike cap 4 sizes too big, chipping golf balls into a washing machine but with a slight difference. The machine is on.
The child is played by Macaulay Culkin but he is now 45 years old, so I’ll use some AI to take 37 years off and remove the beard.
His first attempt finds the centre of the tub, second one exactly the same. After a slight distraction from his Mum who screams out something slightly inaudible from another room Rory attempts to hear but decides to forge ahead anyway and as expected, his third again lands right in the heart of the tub. But by this time, the spin dry mode has kicked in and the pill bounces straight back from the tub smacking young Ror’s right in the forehead.
The little fella goes down like a basket of wet sheets. The camera pans in on his unconscious face… but wait… under those closed eyelids his pupils seem to be racing around in circles. A result of being belted in the scone with a second-hand Spalding Top Flite? Or could he be dreaming??
Next scene –
The screen is blurry but begins to re-focus and we hear a voice saying “Fore Please! Now Driving…” by this time we see a handsome looking middle aged man, (played by Pierce Brosnan), in a green jacket, with a magnificent head of slightly greying hair and a microphone in his hand, completes his sentence with “Rory McIroy!”.
Through the parting crowd a nine year-old Rory strides onto the tee, holding the US Open trophy in one hand and dragging his 45 inch Niki Driver in the other. Despite the club being a metre too long, he puts the perfect swing on his drive and the crowd goes absolutely bonkers!
A series of brilliant shots are fast tracked including a holed bunker shot where miniature Rors is helped out of the trap by an equally small “Harry Diamond” played by Justin Bieber, using some gallery rope. Then they reach the 10th tee on Sunday with a 4 shot lead.
Out of nowhere, Rory pull hooks his tee shot into the members cabins and finds his ball under a webber BBQ which is deemed part of the course. He crawls in under the hotplate and chips out backwards. A resulting triple bogey and painful decline in shot making over the back nine occurs, leaving Rory and Harry eventually sitting on the bottom of the slippery dip in the players crèche, heads bowed down and silent.
Next scene –
We see Chairman Brosnan again calling a now older McIlroy to the tee and again a ripper drive followed by an arrow straight 200 metre wedge to 1 foot for a tap in birdie. Great shot after great shot follow until he again enters the back nine where he sadly spins three wedges backwards into Rae’s Creek on the 12th. The patrons, (played by the same extra’s that we saw in Lord of the rings with their clothes and Orc faces being AI re-organised), are all feeling Rory’s grief to the point where one bloke offers him a hanky and a portable “Donkey Kong” gamer to try and cheer him up. Again we see Rory and his mate Harry gutted, walking out of Magnolia Lane kicking over every magnolia they can find.
Next scene –
We see more of the same with Ror’s and Harry now aging each time. Rory has amassed enough titles and money to create his own Masters but its just not the same without the history, tradition, the patrons and no other players in the field.
The penultimate scene sees Pierce Brosnan who just never seems to bloody age calling Rory to the tee for his last Masters. The little Irish Legend is now walking on a frame and Harry is on a mobility scooter with a small green flag on the back. Amazingly, Rory can still rip it and finds himself just one back playing the 14th on Sunday. A pushed drive into the pine trees is the last straw though and he belts the wheel on the frame only to break the axle. As we all know, the rules state, if you damage your equipment out of temper, you cannot replace it. Rory attempts to crawl up to the green but winds up rolling right back into the pine straw. The camera pans back away from Rory before his incontinence kicks in and goes blurry again.
Last scene –
Now readers, if you’ve kept reading long enough to arrive at ths point, I can tell you, its about to become way better.
As the haze clears, we hear those now annoying words again “Fore Please – Now Driving – Rory McIlroy”
But its now Sunday of the 2025 Masters. A close up of Rorys face shows he has his eyes shut, clearly remembering the horrific dreams he had back when he was a little shamrock chipping balls into the old Westinghouse. As the patrons begin to cheer, Rory’s facial expression is resolute and we hear him say to himself “Not this time you Irish folk dancing, hurling stick!”
Then of course he goes onto make a 3-footer on the 18th to to defeat Justin Rose, (played by Michael Cain), and finally step over that “Thin Green Line”
So, what do think readers?
I’m open to anyone interested in sharing production costs. I could even offer a cameo gig as Brandell Chamblee??
