If you recall, I hesitated to lift Rory McIlroy into superstar status as so many other members of the media did after he won the U.S. Open tournament back in 2011.
At that point, the talented young player from Northern Ireland had a grand total of three wins, but hadn't really established himself as a true force to be reckoned with.
Not anymore.
All that changed with his victory in the PGA Championship and his back-to-back victories in the BMW Championship and the TPC Boston a week before as the race to the FedEx title continues.
There appears to be no stopping him now.
McIlroy fired a final-round 5-under-par 67 for a two-shot win over Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood in the BMW which came just six days after he rallied against Louis Oosthuizen and held off Tiger Woods to take the TPC event.
Clearly, the possibilities appear endless as far his future in the game.
McIroy made up for being a little inconsistent through the earlier stages of the 2012 season when he missed three cuts along the way, and he's clearly established himself as the number one player in the world with more than $7 million in winnings.
The media, of course, continues to build the "rivalry' between McIlroy and Tiger Woods, who has had a decent year in rebuilding his career with three wins to his credit and is still ranked No 3, but at age 36, time is marching on and it's becoming clearer his chase to catch Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors is getting further out of range as the years go by.
Once dominant when he was at or near the top of the leaderboard heading into a weekend, his latest rounds have been barely average or outright poor in all four majors this season.
Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player were known as the "big three" in the 1960s and even then, it really it was only Jack and Arnie that had a true rivalry going. Player certainly had some great victories during that era and is a golf legend, but when he and Nicklaus or he and Palmer battled each other, it lacked the same intensity.
Let's be honest - professional golf is primarily an individual's game and players on any of the major pro tours is concerned only about his or her own game, not someone else's.
Woods and Phil Mickelson have been about as close to a modern-day rivalry as you could get for the past 15 years or so, but while there's no question they have mutual respect for each other, both admit they really don't pay much attention to what the other is doing during a tournament and since they are much older now, there's just not as much anticipation as their was five years ago when they're paired together.
The future is in the hands of players such as McIlroy, Rickey Fowler, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson and a few other young guns who are making their presence known. Frankly, I'd much rather see a rivalry develop between two or three of these guys than with players who, despite their greatness, are on the down side of their careers
McIlroy is more confident, more poised and if he wins the FedEx title, will likely become the dominant force in the game for the next few years.
I suspect Woods will still win now and then and might even add another major title to his long list, but even he will eventually succumb to Father Time as all great athletes do.