In the week leading up to Rory McIlroy’s emotional green jacket victory at Augusta National in April, the Northern Irishman was wearing another green garment – an ancient and sacred stone gifted to him in New Zealand late last year.
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Ryan Fox, who has won twice on the PGA Tour this season, described to reporters on Tuesday how McIlroy wore a pounamu necklace – a special stone from Fox’s homeland – while driving up Magnolia Lane each day during his Masters win.
McIlroy was presented the necklace while on a social golf trip to New Zealand’s Tara Iti course last December. While there, he played with a group including Fox and former New Zealand prime minister John Key, an avid golfer who gifted McIlroy the pounamu.
“Yeah, when we played last year at Tara Iti, he was gifted a pounamu by John Key,” Fox said in an interview while confirming his entry in the DP World Tour’s Australian PGA Championship in November.
A close-up view of pounamu that were presented to New Zealand Olympic and Paralympic athletes for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. [Photo: Joe Allison]
“‘Rors kind of said to me the first time I saw him after Augusta, and I’d just won Myrtle Beach [Classic], as well, ‘John had gifted me that and I felt like it was good luck. I wore it down Magnolia Lane every day.’ John actually texted me a photo of him in a golf cart with Rory wearing his pounamu, which was really cool.”
For McIlroy, a winner of two PGA Championships, a US Open and British Open, donning the green jacket completed the career Grand Slam. McIlroy was the sixth golfer to achieve the historic feat and first since Tiger Woods captured all four career majors with his Open Championship win at St Andrews in 2000.
Pounamu – the Māori term for jade or greenstone – is a precious stone native to the South Island of New Zealand. According to Tourism New Zealand, it is “typically carved into traditional Māori symbols and can represent ancestors, connection with nature, or attributes such as strength, prosperity, love, and harmony”.
“[Key] explains what it means a lot better than what I can, but it’s a mark of prestige,” said Fox, who also won the RBC Canadian Open in June. “We call it ‘mana’ [spiritual power and charisma].”
Fox has also received the pounamu during his 2016, 2021 and 2024 appearances on New Zealand’s golf team at the Olympics. “We were gifted something similar in our induction into the team when we arrived into the [Olympic] village,” Fox said. “It was a pretty cool thing for John to do and obviously it meant a lot to Rory. It was a nice little story that he had a little bit of Kiwi on him when he was at Augusta.”
McIlroy’s affinity for the Down Under nations of New Zealand and Australia were evident in not only that social golf trip but also in his confirmation that the Ulsterman will tee up in this year’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne in December. McIlroy won the 2013 edition at Royal Sydney.
“Yeah, obviously Rory seems to love our part of the world… he had a great time at Tara Iti last year, and I know he’s keen to go back at some point if he can during his busy schedule. But it’s great to have a little piece of New Zealand [the pounamu] that he loved,” Fox said. “I’ve already talked to him about coming down to play the Aussie Open and he can’t be more excited about playing Royal Melbourne in a tournament, so that’s pretty cool.”
