The US Open turned into an unusual week for Rory McIlroy, with what happened off the course attracting almost as much attention as what he did on it.
Looking back on the tournament, many golf fans might just see McIlroy finishing inside the top 20 at Oakmont and assume it was another solid if unspectacular result in his string of US Open appearances.
But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
McIlroy barely made the cut after a frustrating opening stretch, during which the 36-year-old tossed a couple of clubs and even struck a tee marker in frustration.
Eamon Lynch reveals what he heard from Rory McIlroy about the press
Adding to the tension, McIlroy avoided talking to the press after both Thursday and Friday’s rounds, continuing a media boycott that stretched back several tournaments. While he had spoken before the event began, he skipped his media duties on each of the first two days.
When he finally did meet with reporters on Saturday, McIlroy said he was frustrated with the media itself.
On Sunday, despite having the joint-lowest score, he appeared to be in a better mood than on previous days. The Northern Irish golfer even spoke to the media before and after his final round.
Amid all this, pundit Eamon Lynch revealed on Golf Channel what McIlroy had told him earlier that day about his relationship with the media.
“The demands on his time and the requests for his time from the media probably far outweigh any of his colleagues. And it has raised an interesting question, and we saw it with Collin Morikawa earlier this year as well, this idea of do players owe the media anything? And there are plenty of folks in the media who believe they do. It’s nonsense. They do not owe the media anything”, he said.
“The question is do they owe the consumers of their product something? And that’s a problem I suppose for the PGA Tour, and less so for the entities that run the major championships. They need to decide in men’s professional golf if they’re in the ‘we’ business or the ‘me’ business, are they still individual contractors and players who can do whatever they want or are they owners as they believe themselves to be with this equity program with the PGA Tour, are they owners of the game? In which case, they do have a responsibility to market themselves, their own product.
“And I get the frustrations that these guys have out there. And I talked to Rory McIlroy on the range yesterday, and he said there is no issue, there’s no single frustration that’s bugging him at the moment. I think it’s just the corrosive effect of a lot of smaller frustrations.”
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Rory McIlroy’s actions have taken a little of the shine off his historic year
It’s a frustrating turn in what should have been a historic year for McIlroy. By winning The Masters, he completed the career grand slam, a feat that had eluded everyone else in his generation.
The fallout seemed to start when details about his driver failing a test at the PGA Championship were leaked. McIlroy clearly felt betrayed by how that information got out, but the way he has managed his frustration since then has only drawn more criticism.
No one outside of McIlroy’s inner circle will ever know exactly what’s weighing on him. Nor should they. Still, it’s clear that some fans and observers are starting to see him differently.
And that’s a shame, because when he’s at his best, there are few players more exciting to watch.
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