Jack Nicklaus admitted he was surprised that Rory McIlroy chose not to compete in his Memorial Tournament this week at Muirfield Village.
McIlroy had teed it up in every edition of the tournament since 2017 but his omission from the field this week means he has now missed three Signature Events on the PGA Tour this term.
Nicklaus also revealed that McIlroy didn’t contact him to say he would not be playing but insisted he remains a big fan of the grand slam winner.
“Yeah, it surprised me,” Nicklaus said at his traditional pre-tournament press conference.
“But, you know, guys have got schedules and got things they do. And, you know, I haven’t talked to him for him to tell me why or why not. It’s just his call.
“I made a lot of calls that I had to make when I played to play or not play and sometimes it wasn’t as popular as people thought it was. But, you know, sometimes you have to make those calls.
“I don’t hold anything against Rory for that. He did what he likes to play. I know he likes to play so many in a row.
“He likes to play the week before a US Open. And so he…that’s what he’s doing. So, you know, I really don’t have a comment on it.
“It’s very difficult, very difficult. I mean, I’m a big Rory fan, I always have been. I’m sure that I will remain that way. I just, I was a little surprised, yes.”
Nicklaus had a pre-Masters lunch with McIlroy at Augusta National last month where the pair discussed a shot by shot plan for the week.
The 18-time major winner believes getting the monkey off the back and winning the Masters for the first time is a bigger achievement than winning the career grand slam for McIlroy.
After the Masters I dropped him a note and I told him, ‘I don’t think anybody’s won by having four double bogeys’,” Nicklaus said.
“And I said, ‘but that just showed me how much talent you have to overcome that to win and how you played some unbelievably spectacular shots, such as the iron at seven that he hit over the tree that actually hit the tree’.
“The phenomenal iron he hit at 15, the shot he hit at 17. Then, of course, to miss that little short putt at 18…which was not very good. But he played some bad shots. The shot he hit at 13 (into Rae’s Creek), I can’t believe.
“But anyway, you know, I was very happy for him. It was a great win and it got the monkey off his back. And to me, the monkey was not the grand slam. The monkey was the Masters.
“Now, the Grand Slam was a product of winning the Masters. If you ask him which was more important, I think he would have to say the Masters. That’s because it was.”
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