Rory McIlroy, Ken Griffey Jr., and the Monday Morning Golfers: Three Types of Long Overdue Stories

Seven years ago, I wrote a blog post about the Kansas Jayhawks and used a few photos from Sports Illustrated. Simple copy/paste. Me being lazy. Not thinking about copyright.

Last year, I received an email out of the blue telling me I needed to pay up. I assumed this was a scam. You're kidding, right? Can't I just take the photos down? Delete the blog post?

Well, $600 or $700 later, I found out it wasn't a scam and I am now deathly afraid of using copyrighted photos. (But I'm also too cheap to go out and buy the licenses...)

Which stinks, because two photos in particular tie this whole post together. Bear with me as I link out to things instead and embed some Tweets for context.

But first, let's talk about the main characters. We'll begin with Rory McIlroy. Rory is one of the greatest golfers in the world, one of the top golfers of all time. But he had never won at Augusta. It was the one major tournament holding him back from a career grand slam (which means winning the four major golf tournaments - US Open, British Open, PGA Championship, Masters). Rory also hadn't won a major in 11 years. He had an epic collapse at The Masters in 2011 when he led after 54 holes only to finish 15th. Other times he was close at the Masters: 2nd in 2022, 5th in 2018 and 2020.

Needless to say, The Masters was Rory's white whale, the giant gorilla on his back. And in 2025, he was in first place again after 54 holes, then he lost it, then got it back, then lost it, then went to a sudden-death playoff. He was facing his demons and worst nightmares head-on. Years of stress and being so close are why his final putt led to this emotional response.

Who was there to capture the moment? None other than Ken Griffey Jr.

As in the Ken Griffey Jr., the most famous baseball player from the 1990s. Hall of Famer. 630 career home runs. No asterisks next to his name, despite playing in the steroid era. The man had his own video game for crying out loud!

Ken Griffey Jr., an athlete who has been photographed a million times, was there, giant camera in hand, pursuing his retirement hobby. A hobby that he's kind of mastered -- pun intended.

Our third character in this story is the thousands of people who, inspired by that Sunday at Augusta National, went to the golf course on Monday. Or the driving range. Or maybe signed up for their very first lesson. The people starting a new golf hobby or finding their old golf clubs, or their dad's old clubs, and returning to a game they used to play.

There's a direct parallel of these characters in the writing world. And these are the stories we love to be involved in here at Long Overdue.

There's the Rory McIlroy author. For this person, writing a book is a lifelong endeavor. It's a major, major goal that means the world to them -- and understandably so! They've worked on this project forever and have experienced setbacks in the form of rewrites, crumpled up pieces of paper, literary agent and/or publisher rejection letters. For the Rorys, unboxing those finished books brings tears, just like the winning putt.

Then there's the Ken Griffey Jr. This person picked up writing as a new hobby in retirement. Their career could've been totally different. Might not have involved writing at all. But they love this new chapter and, many times, they end up writing multiple books.

And then there's the Monday morning writer. The person just starting out, looking for help on how to get started, or the person who used to love to write who wants to get back in the game.

For Rory, we have editing help. Book design help. And a few paths for publishing.

For Ken Griffey Jr., we've got "Feedback Circle" and "Manuscript Reviews." And we're trying to build these writing groups, like the "Writing in Retirement" group so that people can follow their new passions in a community.

For the Monday morning writers, we offer "Turn the Page" and also our free initial phone call to talk about your book idea or writing goals. We also hope that other content on this site, be it blogs, webinars, etc., are helpful resources to keep on writing.

And if we're working on your book, we're also here to spot those copyrighted images, or song lyrics, or anything else that might cost you $600 (or more) in the future!

So, whether you're a Rory, a Ken Griffey Jr., or a Monday morning writer, we're here to help. Let's connect!

And if you happen to have extra tickets to the 2026 Masters, well, we'd love to hear about that too 😀