Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Rory's World: McIlroy's U.S. Open victory introduces a refreshing new era in golf

What just happened? You hit the refresh button, and suddenly nothing looked the same. One day Tiger Woods announced that knee and Achilles injuries would force him to miss the U.S. Open for the first time since 1994. Twelve fast days later 22-year-old Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland was hugging his father on the 18th green at Congressional, having just won golf's most demanding event by eight shots in a performance that was so precocious and superior it brought to mind Tiger's 12-shot win at age 21 at the 1997 Masters and his 15-shot win at age 24 at the 2000 U.S. Open and not much else.

Tiger's thing -- he got this from his father -- was to let the legend grow. Well, McIlroy, who can cite for you chapter and verse what Woods did in amateur events when Rory was still in grade school, is following suit.

Sunday, 10th hole. Behind the Freckled One was a sprawling hillside so crowded with delirious spectators that it looked like a preppy version of Woodstock. The day was warm and buggy, like it always is when the USGA brings its marquee event to Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. Congressional draws a hard-core golf crowd and even the overserved remembered what Rory McIlroy had done the last time he played a 10th hole on a Sunday in a major. That was in April, at Augusta National, when, sitting on a one-shot lead, he smother-hooked a drive that was about 100 yards offline. He made a triple bogey there en route to an 80 (including a back-nine 43) when 69 would have won him a green coat. When the wheels came off on that Sunday, he didn't know how to stop the train and start it up again. That was then.

This time, one major later, on the 10th on a Sunday, he smoked a six-iron on Congressional's 218-yard downhill par-3 10th, over the water and through the gray, still U.S. Open air. With his ball making a beeline for the flagstick, McIlroy held his knees tightly together and made a downward dip, just like Arnold Palmer does again and again in the old Masters clips Rory's watched a million times. (The kid's a serious golf buff.) Damn thing nearly went in the hole.

The wee golfer -- he's Steve Nash with some baby fat -- made a tap-in 2 en route to a Sunday 69, which was preceded by a Thursday 65, a Friday 66 and a Saturday 68. His total, 268, was 16 under par. Nobody has played a U.S. Open in fewer strokes or more under par. Not Tiger. Not Arnold. Not even Rory's occasional adviser, Big Jack himself.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach « Vulpes Libris

This book, like Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”, are often mocked, but that makes them no less profound to someone reading them for the first time.They are usually introductions to philosophy that is very different from what the reader is familiar with. In the case of JLS, it became a huge part of pop culture, with gulls adorning everything from jewelry to home décor. I first read JLS when I was 12 or 13 years old, in junior high school, where I was subjected to bullying and being beaten up daily, sometimes several times a day. This went on for the entire 3 years I attended that school and I was never entirely sure what started it, but was ridiculed for being different, ugly and not fitting in. My dysfunctional family did not provide a calm alternative at home. Into this fell Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a book which celebrated individuality and encouraged the reader to strive for their dreams. The story, as you may remember, is of a gull who, instead of following fishing boats with the Breakfast Flock, is off practicing flying, trying to go higher and faster than any gull he’s known. Because of this, he’s labeled an Outcast and banished from the flock. As he continues to learn more about flying, he encounters other gulls intent on the same thing. Eventually, JLS surpasses his teachers and decides to return to the Breakfast Flock in the hopes of showing them there is more to life than squabbling over scraps and fish heads. In rereading the book for this review, I was surprised to find how short it is. The text is interspersed with lots of black and white photos of gulls, some blurred to abstraction. I also wondered about the names of the characters, how intentional they are. Jonathan’s middle name especially, was it a tribute to explorer Stanley Livingston or an emphasis on the first part, living? As in JLS was really living, but the other gulls were not. And his first flight instructor is named Sullivan, which was the last name of Helen Keller’s teacher. JLS’s first student is Fletcher, which is also the word for someone who makes arrows, something else with feathers that flies. To this day, I still smile when I see a gull flying by, which is quite frequently, considering my suburb is near Lake Erie. Huge flocks of gulls would gather on the football field at my high school and one rainy morning before classes I went out there and the whole flock flew up around me.I was thrilled. Once I even saw four gulls flying overhead in a diamond pattern, which is described in the book. Someday I’d like to paint that. Because that was my dream, to be an artist. And now I am.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, a story