Rory McIlroy says that he will be out indefinitely with a rib injury following a 22nd-place finish at the PGA Championship in Charlotte on Sunday.
McIlroy shot a final-round 68 to finish the major one over par. Afterwards he said he will return home to be examined by doctors. He believes he may miss anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” McIlroy said on Sunday. “You might not see me until next year. You might see me in a couple of weeks’ time. It really depends.”
Although all four majors have already been played, McIlroy still has work to do in the FedEx Cup standings. He’s ranked No. 43 and needs to be in the top 30 to qualify for the Tour Championship. But it sounds like he’s not too worried about that as of now. Instead, he seems to say he’s more focused on the Masters next year.
“April is a long way away. That’s the next big thing on my radar,” he said.
McIlroy last won a major in 2014, when he went back-to-back at The Open Championship and PGA Championship. The 28-year-old posted two top-10s this year.
Rory McIlroy had a perfect response for former major champion Steve Elkington on Twitter Friday.
McIlroy failed to make the cut at the US Open for the second year in a row. Elk, who won the PGA Championship in 1995, said that McIlroy was “bored” with golf.
McIlroy responded to the comment by sending a screenshot of his career accomplishments, noting that Elk underestimated his career earnings by half.
Twitter absolutely loved McIlroy laying the smack down on Elk. Here were some of the funny reactions:
Rory McIlroy is riding high entering The Players Championship this week.
McIlroy married wife Erica Stoll two and a half weeks ago. The two then reportedly went on a 10-day honeymoon. McIlroy’s just now getting back into the swing of things with his golf and still appears to be on his wedding high.
The world No. 2 golfer spoke at a news conference on Tuesday and spoke glowingly about his wedding, calling it the “best weekend” of his life.
“It was awesome, it was the best weekend of my life and hopefully of Erica’s as well,” McIlroy said, via the Belfast Telegraph.
“It was really cool. We tried to keep it as private as possible, it was between our friends and families and we didn’t really want anything else.
“It was a weekend of celebrations. We had a welcome reception on the Friday, the whole wedding day on the Saturday and a farewell brunch on Sunday. We spent three really nice days days with the people we cherish the most and that was really special.”
McIlroy says he tried to lose some weight entering the event this week, so it sounds like he is trying to refocus and prepare for golf again. If he plays extremely well, it could be because he has so much peace of mind.
Rory McIlroy and former PGA Tour employee Erica Stoll got married over the weekend in a glamorous ceremony at the Ashford Castle in Ireland, but you might have a difficult time finding photos of the big day. The couple took countless security measures for the seven-figure wedding, including preventing drones from flying overhead.
According to a report from the Irish Independent, McIlroy and Stall hired anti-drone technology that had been previously used in counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East. Drone Defence executives Liam Brady and Richard Gill told the Irish Independent that this is the first time the technology has been used to prevent cameras from spying on a wedding, but they expect the practice to become more popular.
Here’s more:
The Cong castle was in “lockdown” from Friday morning. Drone Defence executives Liam Brady and Richard Gill – speaking exclusively to the Irish Independent – said the technology deployed to prevent camera-equipped drones will shortly be used widely in Ireland and other European cities.
“This is the first time this kind of technology has been used here,” Mr Brady said.
Mr Gill explained that their system enables the detection of unsanctioned drones that enter controlled airspace. “The drones are then either taken under our control by special technology or they are disabled by the use of a deployed net.”
If you thought Michael Jordan and his wife went to great lengths to protect their privacy when they got married a few years back, it sounds like McIlroy and Stoll managed to outdo them. Gone are the days where guests are simply asked to leave their cell phones at the door.
27-year-old golfer Rory McIlroy won his first ever major nearly six years ago when he took home the title at the US Open at Congressional in 2011. After that win, McIlroy, then 22, received a letter from late golfing legend Arnold Palmer.
On social media Tuesday, McIlroy shared that letter:
That’s a pretty cool letter to receive from one of the most iconic figures in golf.
McIlroy of course won that major by shooting 16-under and 268 over the 72 holes — both of which were major records. He was named PGA Player of the Year in 2012 and 2014 and has some work to do in 2017 to get back to that form. McIlroy finished in the top 10 in two majors last year but also failed to make the cut in the other two.
Rory McIlroy has taken a lot of heat for playing golf with President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend, and he responded with a statement on Friday.
The current world No. 3 golfer was invited to play a round of golf with Trump at Trump International Golf Club in Florida and accepted despite having a rib injury. He took a lot of criticism for playing with the polarizing president, but said in a statement that accepting the invitation was not a political statement nor an endorsement of Trump’s policies:
McIlroy has tried to avoid the political spotlight in the past. Rather than decide between playing for Ireland or the United Kingdom in the Olympics, he decided not to participate at all.
It’s also worth noting that McIlroy visited the White House in 2012 when President Obama was in office:
Given that information, it seems like McIlroy is just playing it even and trying to avoid controversy, which is something he had enough of with this last month.
Caroline Wozniacki was surprised to hear Rory McIlroy talking about the former couple’s relationship in a recent interview, and the tennis star has a very simple message for McIlroy in response.
Get over it.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror on Thursday, Wozniacki at first claimed to have nothing to say about McIlroy’s comments.
“I saw it alright, but I do not really have anything to say,” Wozniacki said. “Was I surprised? Yes.”
Woz then got a bit more personal.
“It’s a little dead by now. It is three years ago, so I don’t understand why he keeps bringing it up,” she added. “I don’t think there is any reason to. He looks like he is a good place in his life, so he surely he must move on.”
McIlroy is now happily engaged to former PGA employee Erica Stoll. He insisted he holds no ill will toward Wozniacki, but some of the things he said were unflattering, to say the least. You can read McIlroy’s comments here.
McIlroy won two majors and was named PGA Tour Player of the Year in the months after he abruptly split with Wozniacki, so it seems like not dating her has been good for his career. As Woz said, the two broke up a long time ago. You can’t blame her for being annoyed that she still has to answer questions about her ex.
Rory McIlroy took a minute on Wednesday to put Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee in check via Twitter.
Chamblee has been arguing against players hitting up on their driver.
McIlroy decided to respond with one simple tweet:
As Barstool Sports points out, this isn’t the first time McIlroy has responded to Chamblee:
Chamblee believes he was correct about McIlroy though, as the golfer now has a rib injury.
We still love watching McIlroy stick it to Chamblee on social media.
Rory McIlroy is happily engaged to Erica Stoll, but it wasn’t too long ago that he was dating and engaged to former No. 1 tennis player Caroline Wozniacki. Though the two had fun together and appeared to be a cute couple on the outside, McIlroy later realized marrying Wozniacki was not a good idea.
The golfer discussed many topics in an interview with the Irish Independent, including his relationships. McIlroy doesn’t hold anything against Wozniacki, but he does know why dating another top athlete was wrong for him.
“I thought at the time that being with someone that was in a similar position to you was the obvious answer,” McIlroy said of dating Wozniacki. “But it isn’t, because you can never get away from it. You can never detach yourself and try to come back to the real world. And that’s why I feel in such a good place now. I don’t feel Erica wants to change me in any way. I can be myself around her; there’s no bulls—, no acting, no show.”
McIlroy contrasted being with Wozniacki to his current girlfriend, Stoll.
“The thing I love about it is that we were friends before anything romantic happened. We met when she was working for the PGA of America, and renting a condo in Palm Beach, and I found it refreshing being with someone who was living a normal life rather than, ‘Oh! My jet is 30 minutes late!’ McIlroy told the Independent.
“I could speak to her about anything, we ended up spending a bit of time together and realized that there was something more there. I love that she knows everything about me, and there was no judgement there. There was no judgement from day one, which is huge, because that’s very hard to find for someone in my position.”
McIlroy fell into a slump while dating Wozniacki, which many attributed to the relationship. Some, such as Nick Faldo, felt McIlroy wasn’t focused enough on golf and practicing and was being distracted. Now McIlroy doesn’t have to worry about flying halfway across the world to be with his love, which means his support system is much better and helpful towards his career. In fact, McIlroy won two majors in the months after splitting with Wozniacki and was named PGA Tour Player of the Year that year.
Getting text messages in the middle of the night can be annoying and disturbing. That’s true even if they’re from Tiger Woods.
In an interview with Paul Kimmage of the Sunday Independent, Rory McIlroy talked about his friendship with Woods, and how said friendship has led to 4 A.M. text messages that annoy McIlroy’s fiancee, Erica Stoll.
“I’m drawn to him, yeah,” McIlroy said of Woods. “He’s an intriguing character because you could spend two hours in his company and see four different sides to him. When he’s comfortable and he trusts you — and his trust (sensitivity) is way (higher) than mine — he’s great. He’s thoughtful. He’s smart. He reads. He can’t sleep so that’s all he does — he reads stuff and educates himself on everything. But he struggles to sleep, which I think is an effect of overtraining, so I tell him to calm down sometimes. He’d be texting me at four o’clock in the morning: ‘Up lifting. What are you doing?’
“Erica actually got pissed off with it. He was texting me in the middle of the night and I was like, ‘Tiger is in the gym.'”
McIlroy and Woods seem to have a fun relationship full of mutual respect and good advice. For Stoll’s sake, though, maybe a few less texts in the wee hours of the morning, Tiger.
H/T Golf Digest
