Editorial: Rory McIlroy isn’t just a star, but a man who never gives up

​In many of the tributes to Rory McIlroy, he has been described as a role model.

​This is the sort of thing that people say after such a remarkable sporting victory but it is particularly true of the golfing star from Co Down.

He reached the very top – the highest echelons – of his sport due to remarkable dedication from an early age. Rory talks about how he was inspired by Tiger Woods in 1997 at the Master’s when the Holywood player was a boy of seven turning eight.

Rory has put in stunning levels of practice and effort – a level of commitment that even very gifted sporting people typically don’t.

But that not only propelled Rory to one of the four major golfing trophies, the US Open, at the age of 22, it meant that he gradually worked his way to winning all four. Something only six men have ever done, including Woods (and a Jack Nicklaus who was cheering Rory on this weekend, as nervous as the rest of us).

Even more significant than his exceptional golfing achievements is the example that Rory has set young people everywhere, particularly in Northern Ireland, with his determination in the face of setback.

Look at the pictures that we have on page 8. You will see the expressions of ecstasy from each of the four major trophies he has now collected, but you will also see the agony of the failures.

This because it was not all plain sailing for Rory. He was not someone who rose effortlessly to the highest levels and stayed there. In fact Rory’s spell at the very top of of golf began with agony in the 2011 Master’s, the tournament he has just won, when he was far out in front and seemed a clear winner, and then he collapsed.

It was a meltdown, from which it is very hard to recover. Indeed some sporting greats have had such meltdowns and never recovered. But Rory did, going on to win the US Open, the US PGA the next year, and then two years later The Open. Then he had a decade of disappointment.

Again, some stars then can’t recover. He has just done so.

What a lesson in perserverance.