"Bob Torrance would be drooling over those golf swings"

Rory McIlroy might be looking for a third FedEx Cup win but his career success will be calibrated in Major wins, not Tour Championships.

The question now is whether fatherhood will give the Co Down man the freedom to play golf with abandon in the grand slam events and add to his haul of four wins.

So far, his dip into self-help books and philosophy has not yielded results in terms of his Major success and with a new generation of players coming through, led by the passionate Spaniard Jon Rahm, dominating for the next decade will be a challenge.

Many are hugely impressed by Rahm, including former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley. But while has no idea whether parenthood will help or hinder McIlroy, he knows Rahm will be coming hard for him over the next few years.

“Time will tell,” he said when asked if becoming a father would help McIlroy win more Majors. “At the end of his career, he is going to be defined by the number of Majors he won. I know he likes to deflect away from that but it’s the same for all of them, not just Rory. They are all going to be defined by their performances in Major championships and what they do. It’s a good time for golf.

“Rory has been the star man in the last decade. But who  is going to be the star for the next 10 years? Rory has a lot more competition now than he had the last 10 years. Look at Rahm [25], Justin Thomas [27], Brooks Koepka [30], Bryson DeChambeau [26]. More so than Collin Morikawa [23], they have an extra gear, something more dynamic about them. And Rahm is really impressing me.”

The big Basque arrives in Atlanta for the Tour Championship with a wet sail after denying Johnson the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields with a stunning final round performance, capped off by that outrageous 66-foot birdie putt at the first playoff hole.

“I think he is the biggest threat to Rory and all the other guys in terms of who is going to dominate the next 10 years,” McGinley said. “He has the whole package. I don’t see any weaknesses in him. He is full of desire. He is full of ambition. He is younger and earlier in his career and that gives him a natural aggression towards achieving his goals.

“The others are a little further down the line in their careers and that exuberance of youth and not having won a major yet is going to sustain him for quite a while. I do think he has got a lot to achieve in the coming years. I look at his game from a technical point of view and I think he swings the club better than anyone else technically at the top of the game.

“If  Bob Torrance was alive, he’d be drooling over those golf swings. All I have learned from Bob of what a golf swing should be, Jon Rahm personifies that. Everything I know about the swing - that three-quarter swing, that laid-off position, starting the downswing with the legs, covering with the top half, he is able to move the ball at will left-to-right and right-to-left and when he gets hot he gets really hot.

“He did that at the Irish Open last year and he did it again last weekend.  I look at him and I see the full package. He is probably going to be the most dominant player for the next 10 years. There are four or five guys who are up there but Rahm, at this moment in time, just looks to have that edge.”