For the second year in a row, Rory McIlroy struggled to hold back tears in Dubai when Seve Ballesteros’ name came up. At a press conference during the DP World Tour Championship in November 2025, McIlroy explained why the Spanish golf legend, who died in 2011, still means so much to him.
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McIlroy lost the tournament after an exciting finish. He made an eagle on the 72nd hole to force a playoff but lost to Matt Fitzpatrick on the first extra hole. However, he had already secured a bigger prize. McIlroy won the Race to Dubai for the seventh time and the fourth year in a row. With that win, he moved past Ballesteros, who won the season-long title six times. Only Colin Montgomerie, with eight titles, is ahead of him. McIlroy said matching Ballesteros the previous year had felt special, but moving past him was something he had never dreamed of achieving.
In the press conference, Rory McIlroy was asked about a conversation with Carmen Ballesteros before he teed off. “Yeah, it’s very special,” he said. “It’s really nice to have that relationship with the Ballesteros family. I never got to really meet Seve in person or spend any time with him. So to have that relationship is very, very special.”
McIlroy never knew Seve personally, so his bond is built through the people close to him. He said Carmen told him how proud Seve would have been. Seve and Carmen divorced in 2004, but the family connection to the tour is plainly still strong.
To understand the emotion, it helps to remember who Seve was. He was born in Pedreña, Cantabria, on April 9, 1957, and died there of brain cancer on May 7, 2011, aged 54. He won three Opens and two Masters, and 87 titles worldwide.
His influence on the Ryder Cup was just as large. He was the reason the matches were expanded in 1979 to include continental Europe, and he partnered José María Olazábal to an 11-2-2 record. He captained Europe to victory at Valderrama in 1997.
Rory McIlroy also spoke about the Seve Ballesteros Award. “It’s amazing to have that relationship, and obviously if you win the players Player of the Year on the DP World Tour, you get awarded the Seve Ballesteros Award,” he said. “I’m very lucky to have my name on that a couple of times. Yeah, the relationship is important.”
“A couple of times” undersells it. By 2024 he had won it a record fourth time, and he is the only player to have won it more than once. It is voted on by the tour’s membership. That makes it a peer award, and McIlroy has said anything with Seve’s name on it is “really cool.”
The 2025 award did not go to him. Marco Penge won it after three victories and a second-place finish to McIlroy in the Race to Dubai. Seve’s son, Javier Ballesteros, praised Penge’s progression in the announcement. The family remains closely tied to the honor.
McIlroy tied his emotion to his own story. When he hears Seve, he said, it brings him back through his whole journey in the game, and it is “quite emotional.” He has said before that Seve was always his father’s favorite player.
That journey includes a milestone from 2025. He completed the career Grand Slam at the Masters in April, ending an 11-year wait for his fifth major. Seve won two Masters himself, so there is a clear thread between them, though McIlroy did not draw that link in the press conference.
Before the Seve question, Rory McIlroy spoke about the players he had been paired with. He praised the tour’s depth and its pathway for newcomers. “If you play the golf and you shoot the score, there’s no reason why you can’t go from The Challenge Tour last year to playing in the final group of DP World Tour this year,” he said.
“That upward mobility and meritocracy is very important, and the four guys that I played with this week are a testament that that’s the case.”
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen joined McIlroy in the last pairing on Sunday, going for his first DP World Tour title. He was one of the graduates of the HotelPlanner Tour, the tour’s second tier, from the class of 2024. The theme links to Seve’s own story, a farm laborer’s son from a fishing village who became a global star.
A year on, McIlroy is chasing the same record. He is eyeing a record-tying eighth Race to Dubai title. After finishing joint-42nd in India, he sits third behind Eugenio Chacarra and Patrick Reed with three events left.
He has already said how much he wants the record. “I want it, of course I do,” he said of an eighth title. If he gets there, expect another emotional moment beside the 18th green in Dubai.