The world waits for Rory McIlroy

He looks like a character straight from the set of the next Scooby Doo movie. He stands barely taller than your average Cheltenham jockey. He carries himself with the careless demeanor of a carefree teenager.

He is all that and more, so much more. He is Rory McIlroy, native of Bangor, Co. Down, the great Irish hope in world golf, the young man who those in the know have already said is going to be the Celtic Tiger to eclipse golf’s first Tiger.

The concept of life as a first amongst equals holds no fears for McIlroy, nor should it. He is already rated among the top players in world golf.

He is already being talked about as the young man most likely to assume the role of world number one when time finally catches up with the great Tiger Woods.

That he carries the burden of expectancy as easily as most teenagers carry a mobile phone says much about McIlroy and more about his levels of confidence, both the self-perpetrated confidence and that generated by those who have been touched and impressed by his genius in recent times.

That he is just 19 and on the verge of greatness tells you all you need to know about Irish golf’s latest superstar, the Irish nation’s latest sporting hero.       

Just two weeks ago he was on the verge of a showdown with Tiger himself at the WGC Accenture Matchplay championships in Arizona. McIlroy kept his side of the deal when he defeated the much heralded Hunter Mahan, only for Woods to fall on the sword carried by South African Tim Clark.

McIlroy then achieved what Woods had failed to do and defeated Clark, only to lose to the eventual champion Geoff Ogilvy of Australia in the quarterfinals.

“I guess I showed that I can compete with the best players in the world in Arizona but to be honest, I already knew that myself,” said McIlroy, officially in the Top 20 bracket in the latest world rankings.

To those who have followed McIlroy in recent years, his efforts in the Tuscon desert will have come as no surprise. Born to golf — he could hit a drive 40 yards when he was only two years of age — McIlroy has long been the Irish game’s superstar in waiting.

​
Nster.com