For 15 years golf needed Tiger. He made the game more popular, more accessible, more interesting, by virtue of his virtuosic play and dominance over the rest of the golfers on tour.
Not anymore. Thankfully, blessedly, a change has come.
In a performance for the ages, 22-year old Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland made his name this weekend, one that won’t soon be forgotten, and news and sports outlets are giddy about the next Tiger being a Celtic Tiger.
On Fathers’ Day, Rory McIlroy, the only child of a small-town Northern Ireland bartender who worked two jobs to finance his son’s sporting career, hugged his dad tightly after winning golf’s toughest challenge, the US Open, before a wildly cheering throng of newfound fans at the historic Congressional Country Club outside Washington, DC.
But it wasn’t just that the humble, affable, even adorable young man had won his first major. It is how he did it – obliterating the field, beating the top ranked golfers in the world by anywhere from six to twenty strokes.


























