After calling Patrick Cantlay a “prick” in a famous car park bust up in Rome two years ago, Rory McIlroy has refused to go sheepishly under the radar and has already labelled Bryson DeChambeau an “attention grabber” and abuse from the US crowd as “inevitable.”
Heck, he might go all out and call Scottie Scheffler a bible basher before the Friday foursomes. Justin Rose, however, won’t be getting entangled in any pre-competition verbals and is backing McIlroy to roll with the punches and ignore any blowback following his comments.
“Yeah, I think Rory is very comfortable with himself,” the Englishman said ahead of his seventh Ryder Cup appearance at the age of 45. “I think he has thick skin.
“I think that he can handle the blowback of if he says something that he believes and it is not taken in the right way, I think he’s happy to see it how he sees it and call it how he sees it.
“And I think he has the freedom on the golf course to just roll with that.”
McIlroy, so often the toast of US golf fans on the PGA Tour, has been greeted with a smattering of boos at times this week as Bethpage Black turns against him. The grand slam champion undoubtedly has a target on his back and Rose insists he expects any vitriol aimed towards McIlroy to roll off his back.
McIlroy has definitely poked the bear and has stoked the fire of what is expected to be a vociferous crowd but nobody in the European team room is expecting him to wilt in the face of backlash over his comments.
“What he says I don’t think layers into his golf game, and that’s an amazing talent that he has. I think he always plays incredibly freely, and I think that’s probably the line where Rory can tiptoe better than most,” added Rose.
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