McIlroy finds a round with Trump isn’t simple

Intense criticism leaves golfer wary

AUGUSTA, GA. Rory McIlroy, who played a much- discussed round of golf with Donald Trump in February, said Tuesday at the Masters that he would have to reconsider playing with the president a second time.

“Would I do it again?” he said. “After the sort of backlash I received, I’d think twice about it.”

McIlroy, 27, found himself in a most interesting position as he met with the news media ahead of the one major championship that has eluded him. Just a month after his round with Trump, McIlroy admirably blasted the members of Scotland’s Muirfield golf club for taking their sweet time to finally admit women members.

“I mean, in this day and age, where you’ve got women that are like the leaders of certain industries and women that are heads of state and not to be able to join a golf course? I mean, it’s obscene. Like, it’s ridiculous. So they sort of saw sense. I still think that it got to this stage is horrendous,” McIlroy said in March at Bay Hill.

He continued: “So, anyway, we’ll go back there for the ( British) Open Championship at some point and I won’t be having many cups of tea with the members afterwards.”

This was not the first time McIlroy had criticized Muirfield, or, for that matter, spoken out positively about the role of women in golf.

But wasn’t it natural to wonder why he said he wouldn’t be having tea with the sexist members of that stodgy club, yet still felt comfortable playing a round of golf with a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women, mocked a disabled person and carried on a week- long battle with a Gold Star family, among other things? So I asked. McIlroy thought for a moment before he spoke.

“I think Muirfield Golf Club, or the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, and the office of the president of the United States are two completely different things,” he began. “I’ve spent time in President Trump’s company before, and that does not mean that I agree with everything that he says. Actually the opposite.”

McIlroy then struggled to find the right words to characterize Trump’s transgressions. “You know, we’re in a day and age where — we were never in a day and age where — we could say those things but some thought it was appropriate.”

He continued: “But whenever an invitation or a request comes my way, I don’t want to say I jump at the chance, but at the same time, you know, to see the Secret Service, to see the scene, I mean, that’s really what I was going for. I mean, there was not one bit of politics discussed in that round of golf. He was more interested talking about the grass that he just put on the greens.

“But, yeah, look, it’s a difficult one. I felt I would have been making more of a statement if I had turned it down. It’s not a tough place to be put in, but it was a round of golf and nothing more.”

Then he said he would think twice about doing it again.

In February, as news of McIlroy’s round with Trump hit social media, criticism came strongly and quickly. A few days later, McIlroy admitted to being “taken aback” by the backlash.

“This wasn’t an endorsement nor a political statement of any kind,” McIlroy wrote on Twitter. “It was, quite simply, a round of golf.”

As McIlroy has since learned, nothing done with Trump these days can ever be called simple.

MICHAEL MADRID, USA TODAY SPORTS Rory McIlroy, hitting a tee shot during a practice round at Augusta National on Tuesday, took heat for playing a round of golf with President Trump in February.