With the exception of the seriously deranged or mentally ill, it is virtually inconceivable for a parent to harm their own child.

But these days we are seemingly bombarded with sordid news accounts of horrific child abuse -- and not only at the hand of strangers, but occasionally also at the hand of a parent. A father myself, the idea of hurting my child is so abhorrent that it defies description. So, instead of bringing all of us down with that train of thought, allow me to share the story of Gerry McIlroy.

The story begins in the Irish town of Holywood in County Down, a port just outside of Belfast that is home to about 12,000 people. It begins inauspiciously enough -- a child is born to Gerry and Rose McIlroy. He is to be their only son, and he is named Rory.

At the age of 2, after being handed a miniature golf club for the first time a few months earlier, Rory strokes a 40-yard drive down the middle of the fairway of the Holywood Golf Club.

So the story changes.

Gerry was a scratch golfer during his day, but the day Rory showed his father that golf was something he really wanted, he did what most any loving father would try and do -- give up his aspirations in order to let his son achieve greatness.

Look, the sporting world -- the entire world for that matter -- is rife with tales of the overbearing father and the son who resented him. The satirical newspaper The Onion perhaps summed it up best when its recent headline read "If Only There Was a Song Describing the Bittersweet, Cyclical Nature of the Father-Son Relationship."

But Gerry put in 100-hour weeks in order for Rory to succeed at the game of golf. At 8 a.m. he cleaned bathrooms at a local rugby club until breaking for an hour lunch at 12. Then he worked a bartending shift at the golf club until 6, broke for dinner and worked another bartending shift until midnight. All of that money (plus what Rosie took in working the night shift at a local factory) went to the kid.

So it was fitting that on Father's Day, 22-year-old Rory McIlroy lofted the U.S. Open trophy at Maryland's Congressional golf course after scorching the field en route to his first major victory and delivered another perfectly timed shot.

"Happy Father's Day, Dad, this one's for you," he said with a grin.

Twenty years after smacking that drive up the middle of the fairway, McIlroy not only proved that he has what it takes to be a champion, he proved that he didn't forget how to hit home.