Advertising: Rory McIlroy takes on a snarky robot in new Saatchi golf spot

I’ve railed before about “science’s” disappointing tardiness in providing robots to cater to our every whim, but I will generously forgive our egghead chums if they keep doing things like this. For their new spot promoting the European Golf Tour, Saatchi & Saatchi London decided to test Rory McIlroy’s skills against a robot on a driving range. So far so good. But where this spot really soars is in the personality of the robot – he’s a snidey wind-up merchant with a great line in put-downs and folksy sayings. There’s also a nice element of Rory not quite knowing what’s going to happen next, which adds a certain authenticity to the slightly surreal proceedings. This is the latest in Saatchi’s Every Shot Imaginable series; a consistently interesting and super-playful way of promoting the tour which has previously featured players driving golfballs into a boat and the clay pigeon golf shot. Nice.