Fairway to Irish unity

Trans-Tasman rivalry can be ferocious over the provenance of the flat white or the pavlova, but beside the Irish custody battle over golfing great Rory McIlroy, it's a storm in a tee cup.

- Jane Clifton

The win for the proud Ulsterman, who has also represented the Irish Republic at the Olympics, is arguably a more debated Irish border issue than Brexit.

When last month he achieved his grand slam in Augusta, becoming - even to a devout anti-monarchist - king of the sport, it seemed as if the Irish border might cease to exist overnight, so eager were both sides to claim him.

Even someone with a severe golf allergy would have to concede that winning five majors is a sensational achievement, whether McIlroy technically comes from Northern Ireland, population 1.9 million, the whole of Ireland, numbering 7.2 million, or from Great Britain and the republic combined, at 73.6 million. That it has taken McIlroy a decade after his penultimate win to get there perversely only adds to the triumph, because his quest has kept the golf world on tenterhooks for so much of that time.