It seems incumbent upon most of us to cut Rory McIlroy a bit of slack when it comes to day-to-day behaviors. He is young, likeable, and seemingly without an enormous ego that prompts rash acts of selfish behavior.
But his withdrawal from the Honda Classic this morning after going 7 over on his first 8 holes is the stuff of youthful indiscretion and probably worse. I don’t doubt that the pain in his wisdom tooth was very discomforting and trying to maintain his focus on mundane things like reading the grain or factoring in the crosswinds was extremely difficult.
As the defending champion and one of the two marquee players fans had paid their hard earned money to venture out to see today, he owed it to the sponsors and the paying public to bear with it for two more hours, sign the card with an 82, and then head to the periodontist’s office.
The media should take him to task for this, but they won’t. There will be lots of we feel your pain rationalization of his action. But truth be told most of us go to work with aches and pains like this every day to perform what we are paid to do. Unless Rory had Swoosh golf ball like swelling in his cheek or puss pouring from the abscess I think he should have shouldered on and finished the round for posterity sake.
Maybe I am being a bit harsh but when you are the main attraction at the circus it is your responsibility to do everything in your power to make sure the show goes on as planned.
March, 2013
Rory took ownership of this mistake in judgement in an interview two days later with Michael Bamberger of Sports Illustrated.
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