Rory McIlroy admits that he was “a little pissed off” that news of his failed driver test at the PGA Championship was leaked by the media but insists he has no regrets over not conducting any post round interviews at Quail Hollow last month.
After his second round at the PGA Championship it was revealed that McIlroy’s driver failed a conformity test – results which are supposed to be confidential – the Masters champion and most recent winner of the Grand Slam had already shunned the media after round one and continued to do so for the remaining three rounds.
The five-time major winner defended his decision to decline media requests and cited a variety of reasons.
“Yeah, look, the PGA was a bit of a weird week. I didn’t play well. I didn’t play well the first day, so I wanted to go practice, so that was fine,” McIlroy said in a much anticipated press conference ahead of the RBC Canadian Open.
“Second day we finished late. I wanted to go back and see Poppy before she went to bed. The driver news broke. I didn’t really want to speak on that. Saturday I was supposed to tee off at 8:20 in the morning. I didn’t tee off until almost 2:00 in the afternoon, another late finish, was just tired, wanted to go home.
“Then Sunday, I just wanted to get on the plane and go back to Florida. Yeah, look, and also the driver stuff, I was a little pissed off because I knew that Scottie’s driver had failed on Monday, but my name was the one that was leaked. It was supposed to stay confidential.
“Two members of the media were the ones that leaked it. Again, I didn’t want to get up there and say something that I regretted, either, because there’s a lot of people that are trying to protect Scottie. I don’t want to mention his name.
“I’m trying to protect TaylorMade. I’m trying to protect the USGA, PGA of America, myself. I just didn’t want to get up there and say something that I regretted at the time.”
In the wake of his third major title, Scottie Scheffler shared that he was among the group of players whose drivers were deemed non-conforming earlier in the week, leading to him using a new driver head for competition rounds at Quail Hollow.
McIlroy was aware of Scheffler’s situation and was annoyed that his name was leaked to the media when results are supposed to be confidential. Xander Schauffele suffered the same fate at the 2019 Open Championship and publicly blamed the R&A.
“With Scottie’s stuff, that’s not my information to share,” added McIlroy. “I knew that that had happened, but that’s not on me to share that, and I felt that process is supposed to be kept confidential, and it wasn’t for whatever reason. That’s why I was pretty annoyed at that.”
McIlroy’s decision to skip media duties for all four rounds of the PGA Championship proved to be very controversial and he received widespread criticism.
As the Masters and Grand Slam winner, the Holywood man was hot topic anyway before the driver situation put more petrol on the fire.
Under PGA TOUR player rules, players are not obligated to speak to the media post round with Collin Morikawa and Shane Lowry openly expressing their discontent at having to speak to the media this season.
“From a responsibility standpoint, look, I understand, but if we all wanted to, we could all bypass you guys and we could just go on this and we could go on social media and we could talk about our round and do it our own way,” explained McIlroy.
“We understand that that’s not ideal for you guys and there’s a bigger dynamic at play here, and I talk to you guys and I talk to the media a lot. I think there should be an understanding that this is a two-way street, and as much as we need to speak to you guys, we’re sort of — like we understand the benefit that comes from you being here and giving us the platform and everything else. So I understand that.
“But again, I’ve been beating this drum for a long time. If they want to make it mandatory, that’s fine, but in our rules it says that it’s not, and until the day that that’s maybe written into the regulations, you’re going to have guys skip from time to time, and that’s well within our rights.
“It was just some days you don’t feel like talking.”
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