As IF Times

link To be a great, McIlroy must stay true to himself – USATODAY.com.

 At the just concluded 2011  US Open , 22 year old Rory McIlroy’s prodigious talent  burst  him onto the world stage in dramatic fashion.  Readers can refer to other sports sites for details of his on course exploits, but my discussion is the more compelling story of the kid himself. 

Just 22 years of age and he already has been placed at the top of the sporting world as much for his character as for his athletic accomplishment.  He is much of what most celebrity athletes these days are not.  He is not brusque, arrogant or distant.  He does not wear strange clothing, have tattoos or earrings.  He does not  hide behind aviator sunglasses and surround himself with surly bodyguards.  He speaks humbly of his accomplishments, does so in complete sentences and is a filial son.  Unlike many top name athletes today, his ego has yet to overwhelm him.

It’s almost too good to be true.  He is like a Stepford wife.  With an impossibly beautiful swing bordering on golf pornography and a disarmingly modest demeanor, it’s hard not to be drawn to this kid.   In the golfing world at least, guys like Nicklaus and Palmer have always tended to their good guy image and may in large part explain their revered positions in golf.  This is in contrast to Ben Hogan and recently Tiger Woods, both of whom were more prickly personalities but were tolerated because of their talents.  A guy like Rory comes along and once again, people can pull for a hero without reservation.  He has the same quality as did a young Phil Mickelson.  Granted, he’s still young and much may happen, but the talent has been there since an early age and the grounding influence of his parents will keep him as a like-able person for years to come.  It appears that a strong value system was instilled from the outset.  Undoubtedly, his family and friends back in his hometown of Holywood, Ireland wouldn’t have rioted even if Rory had lost.

How many 22 year old kids go off to Haiti on their own volition without commercial intent to assess the conditions of the earthquake victims? How many young kids can take the crushing collapse that he experienced during this year’s Masters and brush it off with equanimity and without bitterness or recrimination?  The kid has a maturity well beyond his years and this gushing fan hopes that he will be the new standard of celebrity athletes in the future.  The world can use some genuinely nice guys.

link Tiger Woods out of the World Golf Ranking top 10 for first time since 1997 – News | FOX Sports on MSN.

In order to fix Tiger’s professional woes, nobody seems to want to address the elephant in the room solution.  He’s already gone the conventional route by trying to refine his swing by working with various high profile coaches from Harmon, to Haney and now to Canadian Sean Foley.  No doubt he has access to the best sports psychologists money can buy…and he can buy a lot of them.  For someone who until recently was destined to be the greatest player ever in the game, the lack of production over the last 2 seasons is unthinkable.  In his absence, a whole new flock of aspirants are fighting for his crown of Number 1 in the world.

The simple fix is, why not go back to what worked before?  When he came out in 1997, he lapped the field at the Masters cruising to the largest stroke margin of victory ever.  His swing was good enough then.  Of course we all know now that other things were transpiring in Mr. Wood’s life, things that didn’t play well in the press. 

But maybe that was part of the formula that made him good.  Maybe in his case you can’t have the good without the bad?

Who knows, maybe all that rampant testosterone in his double life also carried over into his professional life and made him the terror to other golfers that he was.  Maybe he needed to have all of those components in his life firing in order to perform at his high level.  This is not to cast admiration or support for his activities, it’s merely an observation.  Maybe he’s like drain cleaner; works well, but wrecks the pipes.

Years ago, McDonalds was the indisputable champion of the french fry business.  People could scoff at the rest of their menu items, but nobody didn’t like McDonalds fries.  They were like crack cocaine to most people.  Then a dark secret was leaked out.  Apparently over the years when they claimed to be using 100% vegetable oil in fry production, McDonalds had actually been using beef tallow or flavoring in their formula.  Lawsuits and moaning ensued and the company was forced to change their oil formula.   After switching to a more ‘healthy’ oil to fry the fries, the taste never became the same.  Sure they continue to sell fries, but the addictive quality of the previous iteration was gone.  Now, other fast food operations like Wendy’s claim the title as best french fry.  Do-gooders claimed victory, but what really should have happened was that people should have chosen not to buy the original fries if they thought they were harmful.  Too simple I guess.  Go figure, they want to legalize pot, but criminalize french fries.

Anyway, getting back to Tiger, the ignominy of his life has already been exposed, the consequences taken and the monies spent.  So now what?  If Tiger wants to play the recovering daddy role, that’s admirable.  But if he wants to regain the fire that put him on top of the golf world when he was younger, he may have to return to the original formula which put him there.  Tiger’s entire existence is owed to golf.  He has to regain the formula. He may be back on the circuit again soon.  And I don’t mean just golf.