He’ll be there! Rory McIlroy has allayed any fears that the muscular back injury he endured during the Tour Championship will threaten his participation in next week’s Horizon Irish Open at The K Club, the world number two believing that a few days rest and continued treatment will allow him to be fully fit for the tournament on September 7th-10th.
“I’ll just take it easy and maybe hit a few balls closer to the weekend to get ready for Ireland, so put the clubs away for three or four days and make sure that everything body-wise is good,” said McIlroy, who defied the injury – which started in his upper right back and worked its way down to the lower back and on to his hip and glutes – to finish in tied-fourth position behind champion Viktor Hovland in the Tour Championship, the conclusion to the FedEx Cup.
While Hovland scooped the $18 million jackpot, McIlroy – in what was a 10th straight top-10 finish on the PGA Tour, a first for the Northern Irishman in his career – collected another $4 million to add to his season’s work.
McIlroy’s latest injury manifested ahead of the tournament and limited his ability to complete a full swing and forced him into a lower ball flight off the tee at East Lake. In believing there was “quite a bit of improvement” for his final round, he added: “I’m just excited that I’m feeling better. So, that’s good, going into the next few weeks. It’s nice to sign off [the PGA Tour season[ with a good score (65).”
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With his work done stateside, McIlroy will refocus on the DP World Tour for the coming weeks, where he currently sits atop the Race to Dubai order of merit. McIlroy will headline the Irish Open next week – in a field that has been further boosted by an invite to American Tom Hoge – and, then, will play the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth before taking a week off ahead of the Ryder Cup in Rome.
And while McIlroy has his personal goals at The K Club and Wentworth to occupy him, it is that Ryder Cup – and the chance of revenge for the defeat at Whistling Straits in 2021 – that is already whetting his appetite.
“There’s a lot of us that were in that team at Whistling Straights and [losing] didn’t feel very nice, didn’t feel good. I’m excited to get back over to Europe. We’re all sort of making our way over to Europe a couple weeks early. So it will be nice to all get together, get some early team dinners before the week in Rome and sort of really feel like that sort of team chemistry is starting already. We’re all, for the most part, playing really good. There’s still a few weeks to go, but, yeah, I mean it’s the next big thing in all of our calendars,” said McIlroy.
Certainly, Hovland’s form – winning back-to-back at the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship to close out his PGA Tour season – has him as the player most of those European Ryder Cup team members would like to have as a sidekick in foursomes or fourballs when they get to Rome.
As McIlroy put it of the Norwegian, who moved to number four in the updated world rankings, “For someone that’s still so young, he’s got quite an old head on those shoulders ... if someone came along to any of us on the team and said we’re going to put you out with Viktor today I don’t think anyone would say no. Just put it that way. Fourballs, foursomes. The other 11 guys on the European team I don’t think would have an issue if they went out with Viktor.”
McIlroy has already qualified automatically for the Ryder Cup and the qualifying campaign finishes at this week’s Omega European Masters in Switzerland, where Robert MacIntyre – currently occupying the third qualifying place off the Europe points list – will seek to seal the deal without needing a captain’s pick from Luke Donald.
Donald will name his six wild card picks next Monday – September 4th – when Shane Lowry, who is not playing in the Swiss event, will be reliant on a call-up if he is to be on the flight to Rome.
While Lowry has opted not to play in Switzerland, there will be three Irish players in the field with Tom McKibbin, Pádraig Harrington and John Murphy all playing.
