Rory McIlroy A Sports Hero Kids Can Model Themselves After, Parents Need Not Cringe

Everyone is talking about Rory McIlroy today.  He is what reporters call  just a ‘good news story’.  Every newscast, and most newspapers are saying much the same in regards to the 22-year-old man with the curly hair that made the world pause and notice that a nice guy can finish on top.

After countless stories of Brett Favre and Tiger Woods and their antics that make for tabloid headlines, but nothing we would want our youth to emulate, comes the shining face of Rory McIlroy.  And just in time.

Golf needs to have  a new face that makes kids want to pick up the clubs, and buy the merchandsie, and follow the leaderboard.  Golf needs good people to lead the way off the course, as much as it needs professionals on them.  I think Rory McIlroy is the person the sporting world has been looking for.

We can only hope that Rory McIlroy can win another major tournament this year and truly replace all the bad that golf has endured over the recent past.

What was really nice was that golf had a new, and needed, hero.

His close friend and predecessor to this U.S. Open podium last year at Pebble Beach, Graeme McDowell, said Sunday what many people have been thinking.

“Maybe golf is ready for the next superstar,” McDowell said. “Maybe he is it.”

Even Jack Nicklaus, whose 18 major titles set the bar by which all others are measured, chimed in.

“I like his moxie,” he said.

Golf seems happy that with McIlroy, it doesn’t have to worry about a dark side, unlike the current shaky incumbent in the big dressing room with the big star on the door.