If there’s one thing the modern world does particularly well, apart from say political nicompoopery on a quite jowl-shuddering scale, it’s hysterical, knee-jerk reaction.

Everywhere you turn, there are tibiofemoral joints being flexed here and patellofemoral joints being cracked there as all and sundry embark on the kind of terror-stricken ripostes to a variety of situations that can only lead to one thing. That’s right; an epidemic of sair bloomin’ knees.

Of course, the on-going shenanigans with Brexit have not helped this general state of mouth-frothing delirium and boggle-eyed ranting. Out for a gentle meander the other day, this scribe was confronted by a bloke who was so convinced that a no-deal Brexit would lead to the immediate extinction of bread, he was tossing IOUs to the ducks in the Rouken Glen boating pond.

When it comes to matters involving Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, there is often a frenzied, unhinged reaction to his various golfing to-ings and fro-ings as ferociously fickle pundits and punters blow hot and cold and regularly switch from gushing adoration to withering cynicism like some hyperactive imbecile tugging on a pull-cord bathroom light.

After his thrilling, brilliantly executed victory in the Players Championship on Sunday, which brought him a first PGA Tour title for a year, McIlroy silenced his critics with rousing authority and a two-fingered flourish in circumstances which many may have expected him to sag.

Not that McIlroy was going to gloat. “I don’t play golf to answer . . . I play golf for myself,” he insisted.

“I play golf because I love the game and I know that I have a talent for it.”

It was a timely tonic for McIlroy and a success which featured all the hallmarks of a great champion.And that’s what McIlroy is and, hopefully, will continue to be.

“I think I can make the next 10 years even better than the previous 10 years,” said McIlroy. “That’s what my motivation is.”

The Players Championship may not be a major, but this was a major moment for a player who will be bidding for the career grand slam at Augusta National next month.

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READ MORE: McIlroy eyeing Augusta glory

His tee-shots of great fortitude on the 16th and 18th holes of the treacherous Stadium Course were so nerveless, disciplined and unwavering, that the pro-tracer thingymebob that follows ball flight on the telly could’ve been made out of cast iron.

And even in the tumult and pressure of the championship cut-and-thrust down the stretch, McIlroy approached it with a sprightly, decisive pace that was a much-needed antidote to the pesky virus of slow play. When all the cogs and pistons of McIlroy’s game are working in unison, there is no finer sight in golf.

Despite finding the consistency that once eluded him – he has not missed a cut since last June and has not been out of the top six in 2019 – critics questioned the Northern Irishman’s hunger and his inability to close out a win while tossing up the statistic that nine appearances in the final group of a tournament since the start of 2018 had failed to yield a victory. They fretted over his mental state, his putting and his choice of caddie.

That he pipped the 48-year-old Jim Furyk to the title at Sawgrass merely underlined the folly of those who doubted him. McIlroy has not yet turned 30 but has already amassed 24 professional wins, including four majors.

Health and fitness permitting, we can only wonder what he will have achieved by the time he has reached Furyk’s vintage. In this game for all the ages, McIlroy has that time on his side as he moves towards his physical and mental prime.

The Herald:

READ MORE: Players Championship is a major player

Patience remains one of the great virtues in this Royal & Ancient pursuit and while many folk were working themselves into a dreadful fankle about Rory’s drought and falling over themselves to reach for the panic button, just about the only person not getting hot under the collar was McIlroy himself. Doubt him at your peril.

Inevitably, there already seems to be something of a clamour building suggesting that McIlroy can now go on and dominate. We’ve been here before, of course, and not just with McIlroy.

Ever since golf was liberated from the tyranny of Tiger, the global game has been in an era of relative parity. From McIlroy’s last major win in 2014, for instance, the last 16 grand slam events have been won by 12 different players.

Exerting a stranglehold is easier said than done. There are no guarantees in this age of formidable strength in depth and, in golf, predictions tend to be a fool’s errand.

What is certain is that the pandemonium surrounding McIlroy in the build-up to the Masters will be so breathless, they’ll be dishing out oxygen masks in the Augusta media centre. Either that or they’ll be performing replacement surgery on all those aforementioned knees . . .

AND ANOTHER THING ...

JORDAN Spieth. Remember him? The three-time major winner has almost become something of a forgotten man. What would the 25-year-old give for Rory McIlroy’s form these days? The young Texan’s last victory was in the 2017 Open and he’s not recorded a top-10 finish since he shared ninth in last year’s Open at Carnoustie.

If folk were questioning McIlroy after a run of top-five finishes, they may as well condemn Spieth to the knacker’s yard following a sequence of results which have left him down in 30th place on the world rankings. “I’m getting tired of it now,” grumbled Spieth of his slump.