What you have to love about Rory McIlroy is the fact that he does not seem to get caught up in himself.  As you can read in Gene Wojciechowski’s article from ESPN.com Rory is not buying this Tiger-Rory Rivalry thing that the media seems so intent on creating.

Golf Channel has gone as far as hyping this week’s WGC event at Doral as Rory against “the red hot Tiger Woods”.  Bad news for Golf Channel is that wearing a particular color shirt and shooting a 62, especially after being only one under in the previous three rounds, does not constitute being red hot.

Rory understands, as the article says, that a rivalry on this order takes a decade to gestate and bring to fruition and that focusing on that would only be a distraction to what his real goals are-to be the best player he can be.

The wise young one says, “To be honest, in golf, you can have a rivalry if you want, but at the end of the day your biggest rival is the golf course”.

Rory seems content following the script he has been using that has gotten him to the #1 World Ranking, setting goals, working hard, and enjoying the ride.

“I’ve never said that I want to be the next anyone.  I just want to be the first Rory McIlroy”.

I like his perspective-it should take him a long way.

(Click here to read Wojciechowski’s Article on Rory McIllroy)

Gene Wojciechowski

ESPN.com

March, 2012