THERE’S a beautiful moment that kind of got washed away in the tsunami of emotion unleashed by Rory McIlroy’s win at the Masters late on Sunday night.
It came as he walked off what should have been the final green, having just missed the five-foot putt that would have made him only the sixth golfer to win his sport’s fabled Grand Slam.
His head must have been spinning. His heart must have been sinking. There must have been a part of him that wanted to scream in rage, to snap his clubs, to boot a door in.
Yet in the midst of a mental and physical meltdown, he headed straight for his wife Erica and their little daughter Poppy, wrapped them in the tightest of hugs and gave both a kiss before getting back to business.
In a world where humanity is rarer than unicorn horns and where reality feels harder to define by the day, here was the living embodiment of both.
Here was a man under enormous pressure, taking a moment to remind himself of something we all need to remember from time to time:
That what we do doesn’t define who we are.
Tsunami of emotion
That when it feels like the world’s caving in on us, there’s nothing quite like taking a breath and finding comfort in those who are always with us, whether we’re winning or losing.
That’s what it means to be human.
As for that tsunami of emotion itself when he finally got over the line? Those minutes when he doubled up on the turf sobbing uncontrollably, when he got up and roared his lungs hoarse, then cried some more and when tens of millions wept with him?
That’s what it means to be real.
Here was the most wonderfully unplanned, unscripted, un-spun drama unfolding before our red-rimmed, puffy eyes.
Here, at long last, we discovered what Reality TV truly means.
Not desperate PR bods pushing feuds to make Strictly semi-celebs sound edgy and rescue viewing figures. Not your Turkey-toothed wannabes, tattooed to the eyeballs and waxed like dolphins, pretending to find love that ends up leaving them lonelier than ever.
And most definitely not the kind of fakery we’d witnessed only 24 hours earlier, when Big Brother bosses who’d paid Mickey Rourke half a million because he’s a creepy swearmonger acted all shocked by kicking him out when it transpired that he’s a creepy swearmonger.
Slash his fee? It’s probably in his contract that it got doubled if he made the show a tiny bit relevant again.
WHITE House doctors have released Donald Trump’s latest medical report.
And guess what?
They’ve declared him physically fit as a fiddle, reported his “frequent victories at golf” as well as – sit down for this one – giving him full marks for mental wellbeing.
Sure, the fiddle in question is suffering from a daily diet of Coca-Cola, ice cream and burgers which has left it with dangerously high cholesterol, has skin lesions from excessive exposure to the sun, the stomach condition diverticulitis, a benign growth in his colon and has had cataract surgery in both eyes.
Granted, he wins a lot of golf games because even if anyone dared beat him, he’d have them deported and change the scorecards to make it look like he’d made 18 holes-in-one.
Yes, the mental wellbeing test only involved identifying pictures of animals and repeating sentences read out to him; you know, rather than asking if he understood the catastrophic global economic consequences of imposing insanely huge tariffs on imports.
And, in passing, it probably should be mentioned that back in 2018 his personal physician revealed that Trump had dictated his own medical report, which described his blood pressure as “astonishingly excellent” and called him “the healthiest individual ever elected president”.
But, I repeat, at 78 and 305 days of age there’s absolutely no reason to doubt he’s good to go about his daily business.
Except that…well, he then emerged from the health centre to tell reporters that “I have a good heart”.
Aw, Donald.
Just when we’d nearly been reeled, you had to go and take it too far…
Now, I get that plenty will throw their hands up and tell me to dry my eyes, that it’s only a daft telly show.
But it’s not, is it? It’s a siren call to a generation desperate for approval and terrified of missing out. Between them, Big Brother and Love Island and I’m A Celeb tell kids that life’s about faking how you look, how you feel and living for the clicks your behaviour attracts.
Whether that behaviour’s good, bad or utterly embarrassing doesn’t matter. Just hang in there and you’ll be a star, an influencer, a something.
Hang around long enough and you might even be like Rourke, clingfilming your face and pimping yourself out at 72, not in the hope that people still like you, but simply that they acknowledge your existence.
To me, that’s as inhumane as it is unreal, as sad as it is pointless. If it has the power to make anyone weep, it’s surely only for the intellectual regression of our species.
And then there’s Rory.
In the space of five and a bit hours on Sunday, we saw him at his very best and his very worst. He saw him look unbeatable then hopelessly vulnerable. He was majestic, shambolic, hypnotic, electric.
When he fluffed his lines on that final hole, you almost wanted to switch off, because to watch him lose from there would have been horrible. Yet you couldn’t NOT watch – and, when he tapped in on the first play-off hole to get the job done at last, you were so glad you’d stuck with it, because what came next was simply unforgettable.
Footballers today admit to rehearsing goal celebrations during training sessions, the knee slides and the funky handshakes, pulling the jersey up to reveal the slogan on the t-shirt, pointing to the skies in memory of some lost loved one.
Boxers turn the build-up to big fights into the stupidest of pantomimes, choreographing press conference punch-ups and trash-talking like rap stars, before the bells finally rings and you realise why their managers needed the hype so badly.
JOHN SWINNEY says online abuse is forcing good people out of politics.
I’m sure he’s right, too, given that this warped take on freedom of speech is now an everyday staple in every walk of life.
He gets stick, I get stick, anybody whose email address is public property gets stick – because that’s what makes some sad people feel powerful, the ability to intimidate from the shadows.
This, he says, is a key reason why so many MSPs are stepping down before the next Holyrood election. If he’s right, they have both my sympathy and empathy.
But it’s still a bit rich coming from the leader of a party whose own hardcore followers have spent years hurling online vitriol not only at rivals, but even Nats who’ve failed to do what they’re told.
So on the basis of stones and glass houses, maybe sorting them out would send a positive message to the world, First Minister.
So thank goodness for McIlroy, for the way his knees buckled involuntarily, for the way he bubbled like a child, for breaking down again when an interviewer mentioned his mum and dad back home in Northern Ireland.
For the genuine sense of joy and of wonder that came off him in waves.
Here, first and foremost, was an athlete confirming himself as a true legend of the sport his folks had taken second jobs to let him play as a kid.
But here too was a son, a husband and a father showing what humanity and reality truly were.
Swept along on that tsunami of emotion, Rory McIlroy proved that popularity isn’t about posing as what we think the world wants us to be.
It’s just about being ourselves.