Strutting his stuff

IT may sound daft for the bookmakers to make Rory McIlroy favourites for next week’s British Open at Turnberry. But that’s the kind of impression the 20-year-old has made on the golf world. He spoke to golf correspondent Charlie Mulqueen.

IT IS common knowledge by now how Rory McIlroy showed conspicuous and remarkable aptitude for golf from his youngest days, perhaps not quite in the same mould as Tiger Woods, but pretty impressively for all that. Everything progressed as smoothly as expected until he qualified for the 2007 Open through one of his many outstanding achievements as an amateur — victory in the previous year’s European Championship in Italy.

The manner in which he took full advantage ensured that McIlroy, then a callow youth of 18 years, became the centre of attention for the world’s media, who marvelled not just at his wonderful golf game but also at the superb manner in which he handled himself off the course. It was a week he will never forget and one on which he looks back now with justifiable pride, while quickly underlining how times have moved on at a frantic pace over the intervening 24 months.