Rory McIlroy will return to Belfast on Monday for an MRI on an injured back he fears could keep him out of next fortnight’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
The World No. 2 revealed he has been struggling with yet another niggling injury since last Sunday and this after superbly birding the last in his second round of 71 to make the cut with an even par total at the Players Championship in Florida.
“I’ve been struggling with it a bit this week, sort of felt it for the first time on Sunday”, he said.
“Then I’ve just sort of been managing it since. It’s okay, it’s manageable, it’s not, obviously not a hundred percent, but it’s good enough to get myself around here for the next couple of days.
“So, I’m going for a MRI scan on Monday just to make sure it’s not serious and then I’ll see what we do from there”.
Despite being able to superbly hit all but one of one of 14 fairways on day two, McIlroy was clearly in some discomfort in taking pain-killers at times during the two rounds of the $US 1.5m event.
“I should be sponsored by Advil I’ve taken that many pills”, he joked.
McIlroy had commenced his new season in January but arrived in South African carrying an unknown injury and the result of heavy off season testing of new equipment and only to lose the South African Open in a play-0ff to Graeme Storm.
He then underwent an MRI in Dubai two days later that eventually saw him side-lined for some six weeks and missing four events on both the European and PGA Tour’s.
Now McIlroy fears he will miss the BMW PGA and where he reigned supreme in 2014.
“It’s in the same area as what the injury was at the start of the year, and if that injury was an eight or a nine in terms of pain and soreness and stiffness, this is around a four or five”, he said
“So, it might just be a flare-up of what happened previously and I just need to rest for a few days and it might be okay.
“Hopefully that’s what it shows in the scan next week. But, yeah, there’s so many unknowns because we don’t even know, unless you get an image taken of it and you know exactly what’s going on you don’t know, so just making sure that the tissue around it is as loose as it possibly can be and at least the warm weather helps keep it not stiffened up.”
Leave a comment