Last week Rory McIlroy returned to competitive golf on the PGA Tour after a self-imposed break from the game. As part of that break, McIlroy pulled out of the RBC Heritage, a designated event played the week after the Masters.
Rory McIlroy’s last 3 stroke-play starts
Players — Missed Cut
Masters — Missed Cut
Wells Fargo — T50— Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) May 7, 2023
McIlroy had missed the cut at the Masters, where he has yet to win (he called his performance “incredibly disappointing and said, “it sucked”.), and that combined with his role in the PGA Tour’s battle with the LIV Tour, left him feeling burned out. “It’s been a pretty tumultuous time and being in the position I’m in it’s taken up a lot of my time,” he said prior to the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. “Just putting some perspective on where it sits in my life and all the things I’ve got going on in my life. I sort of needed to reassess everything. That’s what I’m looking forward to going forward.”
️ “A needed break.”
Rory McIlroy said he skipped the RBC Heritage for mental health related reasons following his missed cut at the Masters. pic.twitter.com/395MABC2U6
— Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) May 2, 2023
That decision came at a cost, however. McIlroy had to give up $3 million of his earnings from the Playing Impact Program because he missed a second designated event this season and players are allowed to miss only one. For McIlroy it was still worth it because he needed to prioritize his mental health and that raises an important question.
As more and more money pours into sports, and sports compete with each other for eyeballs, what is the cost to the athletes themselves? McIlroy was a big part of the process that came up with the designated events with the intention of having the best players in the world playing together more often. Yet he still felt the need to take time off.
“It’s been a big 12 months and I don’t know if I fully reflected on stuff,” McIlroy said. “I never really got a chance to really think about the Open and St Andrews and everything that went on there.
“I’ve always thought I’ve had a good handle on the perspective of things and where golf fits within my life, but I think over the last 12 months I'd lost sight of that, lost sight of the fact that there’s more to life than the golf world and this silly little squabble that’s going on between tours.”
We, as fans, are often guilty of this too. We heap our expectations onto players and then criticise them if they feel to meet them. We make judgements about their character and their personalities and turn what is essentially a game that is meant to be fun and enjoyable into something that is not. McIlroy’s comments remind us that we’d all be better off if we put a little distance between us and the game.
In the end, it wasn’t the best return for McIlroy, who has won three times at Quail Hollow and finished in the top-10 nine times in 11 years. He finished tied for 47 th and was off the course before the leaders teed off in the final round. But that he was back on the course at all was the real victory.
Credits:-
Photo – Sporting Nation