Rory, Rory, Rory!

Hope Rory McIlroy can win the US Open today. What a great Father's Day present that would be for his hard-working parents.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/sport/s...paying-dads-investment-with-us-open-greatness

 

He's playing lights out golf right now. -17 after 10 and leads by 8. Unfreakingbelievable.

 

If only Tiger was this genuine...

Eighteen months after the earthquake which devastated Haiti, McIlroy witness in Port-au-Prince “stuff I never thought I’d see in my life”.

He saw countless people living in tents.
He saw the dome atop the presidential palace caved in, teetering.
Yet amid the endless mounds of rubble, he was struck by the smiling faces of Haitian schoolchildren.

“The spirit, not just of the kids, but the whole country, was incredible,” he said.
“The whole experience was quite inspiring. It changes how you think.”

McIlroy spoke of this experiences during a two-day reconnaissance visit to Congressional Country Club.

Read more: Humbling Haiti trip is making of Rory McIlroy - Golf, Sport - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk​

 

This is cute. Real cute!

 

Oh no, not the Troubles again! Let's hope Rory & Graeme can somehow help heal the divide.

... as U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy, 22, disembarked at an airport named for his country's most famous sporting export, George Best, and headed home to a hero's welcome in Holywood, just outside Belfast and only five miles from Short Strand, hundreds of men of McIlroy's generation, born and brought up within that five-mile radius, donned masks to cover their fresh faces and armed themselves with petrol bombs, stones, guns—and even golf balls...

... society is still divided, as it was during the Troubles, and not only between Protestants and Catholics, loyalists and republicans, unionists and nationalists.​

Those divisions still exist, of course. You see them in the colors painted on curbstones—the red, white and blue of the Union flag for a Union-supporting area and the green, orange and white of the Irish flag denoting a nationalist enclave. Then there are the statistics: only 6% of northern Irish schoolkids attend "integrated schools"; the rest go to institutions still demarcated by religion. Social housing is similarly segregated.​

Yet a divide that is at least as persistent goes to explaining why some young Northern Irish continue to become embroiled in sectarianism while others live almost untouched by its taint. It is the gulf between those with prospects and those without. Obviously McIlroy, blessed with prodigious sporting talent, has always enjoyed greater prospects than most of his contemporaries, but many ordinarily gifted Northern Irish men and women also grow up with some some vision of a productive future. What distinguishes these children from others is not religion: McIlroy is Catholic; Graeme McDowell, another Ulsterman who won the U.S. Open in 2010, is Protestant....​

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Read more: Photographer Shot as Golf Champion Returns to Northern Ireland - Global Spin - TIME.com​

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I don't know much about Tiger's upbringing, but I have no doubt it was very different from McIlroy's. Rory's parents never pushed him to play golf. It was the boy's desire and drive all his own. All Gerry and Rosie did was sacrifice themselves so that their son can live out his golfing dream.

As a person, Tiger never did make an impression on me. I never wanted my kids to look up to him no matter how brilliant his game was.

My first disappointment with Tiger came very early, back when he first announced that he would turn pro and had just signed an endorsement deal with Nike. Back then Nike was being criticized for running sweatshops in countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam. Several organizations tried to get Tiger to support their campaign aimed at pressuring Nike to clean up their acts, especially regarding child labor. They naively thought the young Tiger would be the perfect spokesman for such a great cause. Boy were they wrong.

I love golf because it is a game based on integrity and honesty. Looks like McIlroy has plenty of both, plus one hell of a smooth swing.

 

Kinda interesting how the media is all over Rory yet all but ignore Yani Tseng, a 22-year old who has won THREE Majors and is currently No.1 in the world.

 

The cute little Rory video clip I posted in this thread has gone viral. 200k+ hits and counting!

It's now embedded on numerous global websites and blogs - notably yahoo.sports and golfchannel.com! At one point its popularity reached #37 in S. Korea. I'm flabbergasted.

Did Priuschatters help spread this wildfire?