Let's get behind Team McIlroy

By Gail Walker – 29 August 2012

Young Rory McIlroy hasn't had a minute's peace since he rocketed to super stardom by winning the US Open last year.

Apart from his spectacular feats of golfing prowess, and the constant anticipation every time he steps on a course, there have been upheavals in his private life, an apparent jet-set lifestyle straight out of the movies, friendships with the glitterati on both sides of the Atlantic, followed by even greater doses of professional success and celebrity.

Now, it seems, his global brand has drawn a very unwelcome and scandalous allegation to the lives of his parents. The same people who sacrificed so much of their own lives, in time and cash, to support the prodigious gifts of their precocious son, now find themselves at the centre of claims which they are having to deny vigorously.

The stress and distress are clear for all to see.

And, make no mistake, the stories and rumours were fuelled by the simple fact of association with young Rory, in whose train the international media follow like a starving animal. Anything and everything feeds it, but it is never satisfied.

So, it's time to remember the triumphs of Congressional and Kiawah Island. Let's look back on the scoop of the Irish Open at Royal Portrush, and feel all warm and glowy inside because the tide is visibly turning in how we are viewed abroad. Let's do all that, with a heart and a half.

And then let's realise that it's time for the rest of us in Northern Ireland to get behind the brand which made so much of that possible.

The World's Number One. Brand McIlroy. All of them.