The Meaning of Golf

I've been hoping for something to write about that doesn't involve Scotland, religion, or constitutional history, and now I've found it. Rory McIlroy, aged 22, has just won the U.S. Open.

The media, understandably, has focused on the personal story: the son of a clubhouse barman, when he was twelve, his parents held down something like six jobs between them, to turn their back garden into an all-weather putting green where he could practice his short game.

And what a game. There's something delightful in the way he makes it look so easy. No question, he's worked hard at it, but what he's worked at is finding the natural line, the natural rhythm; developing his innate talent to the point at which, when it all clicks together, every shot is beautiful.

For years, I've struggled to convince more informed golfers with my lack of enthusiasm for Tiger Woods' game. I've struggled to explain what I think is missing in his list of course records and major titles. Now, I have an answer. I can just point to the way the lad from Holywood does it.

Or let's put it another way. The Tiger, for all his new sexual notoriety, was essentially an intensely-engineered machine, designed and built to win major titles, and to act as a walking advertisement for sponsored sportswear, luxury goods, management consultants, and Buicks. When he equaled one of Jack Nicklaus' course records, one of the old veterans quietly remarked that Jack had been playing with a considerable hangover the day he set that record. You don't really see the Tiger playing like that. The commercial sponsors who paid him a billion dollars (so they could make many billions more) wouldn't like it.

But the first thing young Rory did with the U.S. Open trophy was take it to the bar, fill it with Guinness, and use it as a very very large flagon of the black stuff.

Win.