When Rory McIlroy has a cause, he does as much as he can for it. McIlroy is feeling very charitable this week, already saying that he will donate all of his prizemoney from this week's Irish Open to the Daisy Lodge cancer centre for kids. But that's not the only money that will be headed towards that good cause.
Up until Tuesday, McIlroy didn't have a playing partner for yesterday's Pro Am at the Royal County Down golf that precedes the Irish Open. Ever the savvy businessman, McIlroy threatened to play by himself. Obviously the threat was a joke, but the message was clear.
This lead directly to the chance to play a round of golf with Rory McIlroy going up for auction that night, going for a whopping £100,000 (€141,433) going to American businessmen Billy Rosenthal, Fred Carillo and Tom Iovino.
McIlroy was clearly thrilled with raising that much money for his foundation:
Well, the auction was going way too slowly for my liking, so I put my hand up and said: 'I'll pay a hundred grand to play by myself.' There was a few billionaires in that room, so that got their hands in their pockets.
We had a good time out there and the guys that I played with donated a lot of money to charity to play with me today. I was very appreciative of that. I made sure that they had a good time out there.
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Photo Credit Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
