McIlroy feels “there’s a balance to be struck” on outbursts of temper

Last week’s Valspar Championship was an all-timer in relation to pros throwing their proverbial toys from the pram.

It began with Patton Kizzire ‘putting the laces through’ his putter, sending it soaring into the sky before crashing down on the other side of the green, complete with broken shaft. The technique, contact, the quality of the strike, it was all glorious, especially for media members with pages to fill, but it was hardly the sort of example that the PGA Tour want their players to be setting for the kids in attendance and those with access to technology.

Kizzire subsequently withdrew and has since apologised for his display of frustration, but his was far from the last petulant showing at the Copperhead Course. We had Adam Hadwin turning on the waterworks – literally, not metaphorically – when he accidentally set off a sprinkler after smashing his club into the turf in anger, and even the mild mannered Sahith Theegala got in on the act, dropping his club then deciding it was better to pick it up and give it a proper hurl in frustration.

And Rory McIlroy is no stranger to outbursts himself, most famously launching a 3-iron into the pond at Doral back in 2015 where Donald Trump, ever the opportunist, had a scuba diver retrieve it and the now U.S. President himself presented it to McIlroy on the first tee the following day.

So McIlroy understands both the temptation and the need to temper the anger with the world watching.

“It can be relatable,” said the four-time major champion ahead of the Texas Children’s Houston Open, “but at the same time you want to try to set a proper example.

“Like, you don’t want 10-year-old kids punting their putters across the green every time they miss a putt. But at the same time it shows that we are human, it shows the human side to ourselves.

“At the same time, we have a responsibility to set an example, and golf is a lot about the etiquette of the game and doing right thing. There’s a balance to be struck there.”

And, speaking selfishly as a media member, that balance probably lies somewhere between zero outbursts ever and three viral incidents in one week.