Rory McIlroy has been labelled by some as the new Tiger. But he could be about to emulate the great Seve.

There’s only one Tiger Woods, and there’s only one Seve Ballesteros.

If McIlroy is still top of the money list after the climax of the Dubai World Championship on Sunday, the 20-year-old Ulsterman will be the youngest European number one since the great Spaniard who achieved the feat at the age of 19 back in 1976.

Seve played the game with panache and was adored by the galleries, so his recent battle against a brain tumour has drawn best wishes from the world over.

Rory plays the game with similar flare and if he retains the simple joy of swinging a club, the Holywood lad can go on to achieve great things.

Seve and Rory both grew up in golfing families and were playing the game almost as soon as they could walk. Both developed their own unique styles.

McIlroy looks nailed on to bag a Major sooner rather than later, something Seve achieved for the first time when he won the Open at Royal Lytham in 1979, aged just 22.

Seve went on to add two more Open Championships to his impressive roll of honour — 1984 at

St Andrew’s and 1988 back at Royal Lytham — as well as Masters triumphs in 1980 and ‘83.

Seve went on to win almost 100 professional titles and played in eight Ryder Cups, winning four, as well as captaining the successful team of 1997 — especially poignant as it was played at Valderrama in Spain.

That’s a hell of an act to follow. But McIlroy is up to the challenge — and then some.

Seve blazed a trail in European golf from the mid 1970s on and left and indelible mark on the game.

Rory has fought his way to the top at a time when the competition is umpteen times more fierce than even 10 years ago, never mind 30 years ago.

It has been said it’s not the winning or losing that counts, but how you play the game.

Well McIlroy on form is a pleasure to watch — but the youngster has the steel required to be a winner. He demonstrated that by clinching his first Tour title — the Dubai Desert Classic — earlier this year while still a teenager.

It’s ironic that he finds himself back in Dubai with a chance to become European number one just a few short months later.

Apart from McIlroy, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Ross Fisher could all yet finish top of the money list.

Rory is currently €128,000 ahead of Westwood and it will be a surprise if the Englishman can wipe out that deficit over the next four days, even more so Kaymer or Fisher.

The permutations are complex but to sum it up, if McIlroy, Westwood or Kaymer win the Dubai World Championship they will be European number one, while Fisher will top the list if he wins and neither McIlroy nor Westwood finish second.

It’s the sort of nail-biter that Seve, in his pomp, would have relished.

Seve won the last of his Majors before Rory was even born and although there have been great European golfers since the Spaniard — Nick Faldo the pick of them — none resembles Seve in style and attitude quite like the young Ulsterman.

So it would be very apt to see McIlroy crowned as European number one this weekend.

There will only ever be one Seve. But Rory’s keeping the memories alive.