He is barely out of swaddling clothes, compared to most top professionals, but the ebb and flow of Rory McIlroy’s career can already be tracked with some degree of predictability.
That is not the same as consistency.
At the British Open, two weeks ago, as McIlroy was winning his third major championship by the age of 25, former world No 1 Tiger Woods characterised the Northern Irishman as a streaky player, which some interpreted as a slap.
Criticism or otherwise, it hardly detracts from the accuracy of the observation.
When McIlroy is at high tide, nobody can compete. At low ebb, he is just as likely to miss a month of cuts in succession. Like his name on the claret jug, these facts are etched on his career flow chart.
“Rory’s a streaky player, but if he can find that consistency level over the next few years, he’s going to win a boatload of these majors,” the swing coach David Leadbetter told the BBC.
If not, his trajectory will mostly relate to good timing.
“When he gets it going, he gets it going,” Woods said. “When it gets going bad, it gets going real bad.
“It’s one or the other.
“He has his hot weeks and he has his weeks where he’s off. And that’s just the nature of how he plays the game. It’s no right way nor wrong way.”
Now would be a great time to follow the current compass. Starting on Thursday at the Bridgestone Invitational, McIlroy intends to play six of the next seven weeks on the PGA Tour against the best players in golf and with US$51 million (Dh187m) on the table.
The deepest part of the golf season is at hand.
Next week’s PGA Championship has secured commitments from every player in the world top 100, which will represent a first, assuming nobody withdraws.
Two weeks later, the lucrative FedEx Cup series begins, featuring four consecutive purses of US$8 million. Moreover, McIlroy can supplant world No 1 Adam Scott with a win this week, if the Australian finishes outside the top five.
Continuity is the last piece to his curious puzzle, really.
Until then, grab a seat on the McIlroller-coaster.
“I’m not afraid of my inconsistencies,” he said this week. “It’s something that I actually quite welcome, and I know that my good is very good and my bad can sometimes be very bad.
“At the end of the day, it all levels out. I’ll have my good weeks, and I’ll have my bad weeks. But definitely, if you said there’s one thing I’d like to get better at, it would just be a bit more consistency in there. Hopefully, I’m on the right path to do that.”
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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