Champion happy to play role model

All of a sudden it’s a very different 16 the world of golf is talking about.

Instead of the 16 different winners of the last 16 Majors, it is the fact that Rory McIlroy has now won two Majors by an incredible combined margin of 16 strokes.

No wonder McIlroy upgraded his season from B to A+ immediately after his latest tour de force, one that took the tournament’s biggest win off Jack Nicklaus and left Tiger Woods — absent from Congressional last summer — in the dust 11 strokes back.

“I think I heard Tiger say that you can have a good season, but to make it a great season you need a Major championship,” said the 23-year-old, the fifth youngest player in history to collect two Majors.

But perhaps the greatest thing of all about him is that his fresh-faced, youthful image is so good for a game that had the Woods off-course sex scandal and on-course tantrums at its epicentre for so long.

“I realise that every time my face is on TV or I’m playing in a tournament that I am role model for a lot of people and a lot of kids do look up to me,” he said.

“I try to do my best in that regard and put myself across as honestly and as modestly as I can. Some can view it as a big responsibility, but I think if you go about your life and live it the way you always would, I think everything’s okay. It’s a huge honour to be put in that position. To have an effect on so many people’s lives is a nice feeling.”

Meanwhile veteran golf commentator Peter Alliss has also lauded McIlroy but insists it is too soon to assume he is destined to become one of the greatest players in the sport’s history.

Alliss, 81, is also a big admirer of McIlroy but erred on the side of caution when asked if he could become one of the greatest of all time.

Currently, McIlroy’s tally of two majors is 16 less than the record held by Jack Nicklaus, while Tiger Woods has 14 major crowns to his name.

“I love watching him (McIlroy) play, he’s a tremendous young man and he’s got all bags of talent. He’s only 23, I hope that he’s still doing the same when he’s 43,” Alliss said.

“But he might break his legs next week and never play again. It’s like asking will Tiger ever win again? How should I know? He (Woods) has won three times this year but he hasn’t won a major. He’s not played well but he’s consistently getting top 10 finishes since his marital problems, you never know.

“His nerves are spectacular and he seems to have good people behind him with his family and everything but how many times is someone going to make a 100 at cricket or a footballer going to score 25 goals in a season?”