Rory McIlroy laid a smack down on the golf world at this weekend's U.S. Open like few we have ever seen. He dominated from start to finish, leaving no doubt the scars from his blunder at this year's Masters are behind him and placing himself atop on the list of potential next big things.

While his 16-under-par winning score felt nice, it was obvious something was missing. It was obvious one of the show's stars was absent and the producers were doing their best to cover it up with a better story line. It was obvious there was no Tiger Woods.

It was like the Tori Scott episodes of "Saved by the Bell." Remember the biker chick that showed up in the final season when Jessie and Kelly were mysteriously gone?

Don't get me wrong, this not a knock on Tori - or Rory for that matter - she was a really pretty girl and seemed a lot cooler than any other girl that show ever had. The problem though was that she never got the chance to stand eye-to-eye on the grand stage with Kelly. (Let's go ahead and eliminate Jessie from the discussion here. Being a none super hot die-hard feminist, never exactly made her a very competitive opponent.) No matter how good she did, Tori really needed that chance to go head on with Kelly to solidify her place atop the "Girls Zach kissed and made the crowd go 'woOOooo'" pyramid.

And tell me you didn't want that. Tell me you didn't always hope Kelly would come back from whatever oversees trip or family vacation she and Jessie went off on, completely ignoring Lisa, and face off with Tori.  Everyone wanted it. Everyone wanted to see a Tori-Kelly showdown.

Now there are plenty of Tiger haters out there who will hate this analogy. There are plenty of folks in denial about what a huge part of golf Woods is and get ticked whenever his absence is mentioned.

That tells us a lot about how important Tiger is though. Seriously, when is the last time some one cussed you out because you said it would be nice if Greg Norman was around? Exactly. Bring on the Paul Hogan references.

This isn't an anti-Rory rant either. I dig the kid. He's got a great personality, cool hair, and apparently ice water in his veins. Yeah, he has yet to take my advice on that cover shoot for the Lucky Charms' box, but there's still time.

There really wasn't anything more Rory could have done Sunday. He completely owned the stage he was on and destroyed the field he was given. It's not his fault that stage was absent the show's top star. But fair or not, the lack of Tiger could be felt. It made things different. It made the set look just a little bit smaller and left us all hoping and praying for a future Rory-Tiger showdown.

Of course the good news is, we might just be headed towards that.