The British Open introduced the world to amateur golf sensation Rory McIlroy - and it won't be long until he is taking on the pros every week, he tells Brian Rowan.
On a little bench overlooking the 18th green at Holywood in Co Down there is a plaque in memory of Jimmy McIlroy, a long-time member who died in 1992. Jimmy's son Gerry is the bar manager at the golf club, and his son Rory needs no introduction - not after last week.
The British Open at Carnoustie was exceptional for Irish golf - for Pádraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy, professional and amateur, winners of the Claret Jug and the Silver Medal respectively.
He is just 18, but already McIlroy has more than 16 years' practice and playing experience. In Holywood they remember him, at just seven years old, telling one of the older members that he was "playing the golf of his life".
His father reckons he introduced him to the 17th tee box at Holywood when he was just 18 months old, and, as the story develops, you are told about the young boy spending hours and hours playing balls down that fairway towards the hole they call Holly Bush.
There are photographs of him at no size, showered in sand as he plays out of bunkers.
His coach, Michael Bannon, made him his first set of proper clubs when he was about nine, and ever since they have been working to "build and structure a swing that would work for him". Carnoustie, then, didn't just happen - it is the result of many hours on the driving range, and in a routine of chipping and putting.
Away from the course, he stretches and does yoga. "He is a strong boy because he has hit so many golf balls," Bannon says. "There are lots of people who can swing the golf club. The other part is between the ears - coping with the pressure." That was something else in that Open performance that impressed his coach, "that he held up under such immense pressure".
McIlroy has a history of winning. By nine he had won his first under-age world championship in the United States. He once appeared on a live Northern Ireland television chat show, chipping a ball into the drum of a washing machine, something he practised from the hall into the kitchen at home when it was too wet to go outside.
He strolled onto the set that night with a swagger, which has been with him since.
I GREW UP on the same street as McIlroy's dad - our homes were the swing of a nine iron from the Holywood club. For a number of generations, the McIlroys have been a part of the golf there. Rory and his father have both been club champion.
McIlroy knows the course so well - those holes stretching from Hazel Wood, past Cherry Tree, down Nun's Walk, through the Valley, over Irish Hill, and coming home past Holly Bush to that 18th green and the Clubhouse finish, where that bench sits with his grandfather's name on it.
Golf has been good to Rory McIlroy, and it is getting better. It has been a week of front-page and back-page news, of television interviews, and of visits to the media centre. Everybody wants to talk to him. "It gave me a glimpse of what Tiger Woods has to do every day," he says, back home. Being in that spotlight was "quite exciting", but, at times, "pretty intimidating".
Here he is talking about his first visit to the media centre at Carnoustie "after shooting the 68" - three under par in his first ever major - "and there's 100 reporters sitting waiting to talk to you".
"The good thing about that is you say what you want. You don't have to answer everything." McIlroy has always been a quick learner. He has a calm focus, likes the attention and knows how to play to it.
And he knows who has helped him most. A few months ago, at a gala dinner for him in the Holywood club, he paid tribute to his parents, Rosie and Gerry. Their dedication and sacrifice made his golfing success possible.
Has his performance in the
Open begun to repay them for all
of that?
"Nothing can replace the money, the support and the time they gave me," he replies. "Mum and dad knew I was a good player, but to go to the British Open, my first major - it was very special for them. They were very proud."
What about Rosie - how nervous was she as she watched? "Oh God," she says, "the first tee, and then the 18th on the first day, the tears came streaming down my face. It was fantastic."
AT THE MOMENT, McIlroy is taking a break - some "complete relaxation" in Dubai - before he begins his build-up for September's Walker Cup, the amateur equivalent of the Ryder Cup, which will take place at Royal County Down.
"I can't wait," he says. "If the Open was good, I think this could be even better - the atmosphere." After the Walker Cup, he will turn to the professional game. He loves the crowds, the big golfing theatres, and he loves to entertain.
The curtain has come down on Carnoustie - "In a way it has changed my life," he says, in a calm, matter-of-fact way - but this is just the start for Rory McIlroy. The teenager has given the sport and the world a glimpse of what he can do.
We will find out soon.