Injured McIlroy unable to defend his Open title at St. Andrews
WASHINGTON —Two days after revealing his badly sprained ankle on his Instagram account, Rory McIlroy, the topranked golfer in the world, went back to social media to put the speculation to rest: He will not play the British Open.
“After much consideration,” read McIlroy’s post Wednesday morning, “I have decided not to play in the Open Championship at St. Andrews. I’m taking a longterm view of this injury and, although rehab is progressing well, I want to come back to tournament play when I feel 100 per cent healthy and 100 per cent competitive.”
It’s the first time in 61 years that the defending British Open champion will not be in the field.
McIlroy, 26, suffered the injury — a rupture of the anterior talofibular ligament and “associated joint capsule damage” — while playing pickup soccer Saturday near his Northern Ireland home. Medical experts say such injuries typically take several weeks, if not months, to heal and sometimes require surgery.
The question now will be whether he can make it back in time to defend his title at the PGA Championship, Aug. 13-16 at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin. His 2014 victories at the British Open and PGA made him the fourth golfer, along with Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, with four major titles before the age of 26.
The loss of McIlroy deprives the British Open of the possibility of a showdown at the storied “home of golf” between McIlroy and 21-year-old Texan Jordan Spieth, the reigning Masters and U.S. Open champ and the secondranked golfer in the world. Spieth, only the fourth player since 1960 to have won the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year, has a chance to replace McIlroy at No. 1 in the world with a good finish at the John Deere and a victory at St. Andrews.
“We want him back. Everybody does,” Spieth said Tuesday at the John Deere Classic. “It’s unlucky, it’s unfortunate, and I’m sure he’s taking it harder on himself than anybody else.”