McIlroy pans fellow Europeans for PGA Tour no-show

World No.1 Rory McIlroy tends to say exactly what he has on his mind and last week was no different when he spoke to the media ahead of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage.

As part of the pre-tournament virtual press conference, the 31-year-old was asked about the European players, who decided to skip the PGA Tour restart and miss the chance to play for valuable work ranking points.

Rory McIlroy (Credit: PGA Tour)

“If I were in their shoes and I was asked to come over to the states and shelter in place or quarantine for two weeks before these tournaments, I would have done that,” said McIlroy.

“I mean, if you really care about your career and care about moving forward, you should be here, I think. Last week was 70 World Ranking points for the winner, this week 74.”

Following a break of three months, the PGA Tour resumed two weeks ago at the Charles Schwab Challenge and along with it, the Official World Golf Rankings, which had been frozen since mid-March.

Many European Tour players, who don’t live in the US and would be forced to quarantine, were critical of the move as they saw it as favouring the PGA Tour with play not starting up again on the European Tour until late July.

Amongst the high-profile players choosing not to compete were World No.12 Tommy Fleetwood and World No.30 Francesco Molinari.

Fleetwood was blunt in his assessment of the situation last month.

“I’m not going to travel to America and stay away for four months…that is simply not a consideration,” he told The Guardian.

Without naming names, McIlroy, who has yet to have a family and lives in a luxury gated estate in Florida, made it very clear on what he would do in the same situation.

“I get there’s different variables and families and stuff involved, but we all have the means to rent a very nice house in a gated community in Florida…it’s not a hardship for two weeks to come over and quarantine.”

“I honestly don’t understand the guys complaining because there is a solution to it. You can come over here and do what needs to be done.”