WASHINGTON — Just days after winning the Masters golf tournament and becoming only the sixth player in men’s golf to win all the sport’s majors, Rory McIlroy scored a victory of a different kind back home in Great Britain, getting permission to install an air source heat pump on his $12 million estate in Surrey.
McIlroy, who hails from Northern Ireland, was granted “very special” permission to install the heat pump for an outdoor swimming pool he’s installing at his home on the prestigious Wentworth Estate in the borough of Runnymede.
However gaining that permission wasn’t easy, and came down to a dramatic final round that in its own way rivaled his beating Justin Rose in a playoff at Augusta two Sundays ago.
The Runnymede borough council had initially deemed McIlroy’s plans “inappropriate” for an area deemed a greenbelt under national planning guidelines.
That McIlroy was ultimately able to prevail came down to his being able to demonstrate the environmental benefits of the renewable energy-reliant heat pump technology he plans to deploy.
“The development is considered to be inappropriate development within the Green Belt, but very special circumstances are considered to exist,” the council said in approving the plans, according to London’s Daily Mail newspaper.
“The harm identified in the above assessment is that the proposed development constitutes inappropriate development within the Green Belt, this is given substantial weight,” the governing body added.
“The Green Belt balancing exercise therefore needs to be if ‘other considerations’ put forward as part of this planning application equate to ‘very special circumstances’ which exist to outweigh the harm and any other harm,” it said.
While McIlroy was off competing, his representatives filed an application in the borough arguing that “very special circumstances” existed due to the “wider environmental benefits” of having his pool — which the council approved last year — heated by renewable energy.
As described in planning documents, the heat pump would be housed in a nearly six-foot tall timber enclosure. Though there are already other heat pumps on the property, this would be the first to be placed on its south side, resulting in the need for special permission.
If approved, McIlroy’s people said, the use of renewable energy would limit the need to rely on power from non-renewable sources.
In the end, the borough council agreed.
“It is considered that significant weight can be attributed to the environmental benefits and this would outweigh the harm to the Green Belt,” it said. “It is considered that very special circumstances exist.”
Up next for McIlroy is likely the PGA Championship, which is being held next month at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. McIlroy has won competitions on the course on four other occasions.
There’s no doubt though that he’s also looking forward to the 153rd British Open, which is returning to Royal Portrush, in his native Northern Ireland in July.
The last time the British Open was at Portrush, in 2024, McIIroy missed the cut.
Source: The Well News / Digpu NewsTex