TIPPING POINT:McIlroy's life is richer, better connected and far more glamorous than ours. But he still has to steer his way through it. Let him get on with it, writes BRIAN O'CONNOR

BACK IN the day, when walls came tumbling down across Europe, mobile phones were the size of concrete blocks and just the act of buying condoms over the counter offered a faintly illicit thrill, your hero here took a course in journalism.

And before you say anything, yes, I did finish it. And yes, I did cheat in the exams, and yes despite that, only barely passed.

This was at a time when pursuing the media game was only mildly disapproved of by polite society: a sort of furtive roguishness was the popular image, not the sifting-through-rubbish-bins, caught-dogging-in-a-Corsa, dip-me-in-ammonia vibe that hums around the noble pursuit now.

But there was one lecturer who despaired at the number of nascent sports hacks in front of him and decided to encourage some sound journalistic principles along the lines of just recount what happens.

This, you will understand, was when people relied on such reports for their information, instead of now when any so-called celebrity’s every move can be witnessed damn near live with just a click of a mouse.

But back then there was a tried and trusted way of doing things in news, a formula our mentor felt could be translated to sports if only our over-excitable minds could grasp the concept of detachment.

“Don’t be fans with typewriters,” was the stern warning, as if double-bagging enthusiasm was the only way of stopping the spread of this sporting virus – and typewriters kids were what we had before laptops and touch-pads.

Anyway, even then the advice felt wrong: sport, after, all isn’t much without enthusiasm, just the expenditure of energy. Trying to equate its fundamental competitive purity to the shady compromise of politics or business, and expect to do so according to blunt “why, who, where, what, when and how” principles simply didn’t feel right.

So while all the real, serious embryonic hacks pursued the job of righting the world through informing said world of problems most of it would rather ignore, the rest of us got on with the job of painting overwrought pictures for the comic sections at the back that are actually read.

All of which doesn’t mean our Pulitzer-producing Prof didn’t have a point. As some of us also learned back then, too much enthusiasm and not enough restraint can result in puddles of embarrassment that frankly aren’t a good look.

The Prof came to mind last week when surveying some of the coverage of Rory McIlroy’s visit to the White House where he had a bite to eat alongside Obama, David Cameron and an intimate group of a thousand close friends.

Rory, it was pointed out in one of those “God, I hope I can pad this out to a thousand words” spaces not totally dissimilar to this, looked a little too comfortable passing the pate amongst his fellow worthies.

The tone was one of disappointment, of barely disguised disapproval. Our young fella with the swaggering gait and swing from God doesn’t look like the ordinary, unaffected kid from Norn Iron anymore. The star system is taking over, apparently.

Rory has security now, and a high-profile girlfriend, and takes private jets, and gets invited to the White House, and hangs out with Clooney and Clinton and that red-haired bloke from Homeland, and promises to help Obama with his swing, and generally looks like he is way too-at-ease in celebrity-land. Boo!

To which one can only ask, what is Rory supposed to do? RSVP Obama and say he can’t accept an invitation to the leader of the free world’s gaff because there might be a few hacks out there with enough time on their hands to ponder whether Rory is keeping it real, like? Sometimes it’s just plain inevitable that sporting passions lead us to ascribe human virtues in proportion to the wondrous talent in front of us. Journos are no different to anyone else. In fact, sometimes there’s almost a sense of ownership about it.

How lauded would Messi be for instance if he had the preening, self-indulgent personality of Cristiano Ronaldo? Or what might the pecking order be if it was the other way around? Messi might just be the finest football talent ever to lace up a pair of boots but a not insignificant part of the idolatry that comes his way is due to what he isn’t, and what he isn’t is Ronaldo.

And yes, it is refreshing to see someone seemingly modest and unaffected by the fame that has come his way. But to judge someone on that is more than a little ridiculous. What some of our more hysterical pundits need to remember is that it is perfectly possible to be great at what you do and still be a bit of a shit.

There are countless examples. Ali was charismatic and brilliant and disgraceful in how he treated Joe Frazier. Lester Piggott remains the benchmark in terms of throwing a leg over a horse, but even his most fervent groupie couldn’t accuse him of being a paragon of personal propriety. Pele’s allegiance to product placement is legendary in its arbitrariness. And then there is Tiger.

At least part of the reason so many hacks feel protective of wee Rory is that he isn’t Tiger. It’s the whole Messi-Ronaldo thing, just with less polo-shirts. Tiger doesn’t like hacks, and yet is obsessed by them. How else to explain that cringe-inducing performance just after wifey set out to implant a five-iron in his wandering eye?

Tiger’s other eye was placed firmly on his sponsorship portfolio as he oh-so-sincerely flagellated himself on TV for the admittedly less than admirable, but still hardly damnable, “crime” of boffing too many fame-hungry groupies. That was the creepy part, the blatant cynicism behind the bad acting.

The idea that Rory, dazzled by the bright lights of temptation, might venture down the same path clearly upsets people. But it seems unlikely. McIlroy appears to be a personable, pretty sensible young fella for whom the novelty of success and fame has yet to wear thin. Mind you, that probably won’t last long.

As one of the most recognisable sports people in the world, it’s probably no bad thing to have some muscle around, given that an inexhaustible supply of inadequates seems to be the world’s true renewable resource. And, given the choice, most of us would skip cattle-class and fly private. And if a gorgeous, athletic, financially-independent Scandinavian blonde felt we were wonderful, most of us would probably find it damn hard to disagree.

Einstein called reality an illusion. Certainly everyone’s reality is different. Rory’s is richer, better connected and far more glamorous than ours. But he still has to steer his way through it. He might do so in a Porsche rather than a Punto but steering is steering. Let him get on with it.