Rory McIlroy Walks off the Honda Classic

Rory McIlroy stunned fans in the middle of the Honda Classic last week when he left and didn’t come back. What made this even worse was the fact that he was the defending champion for the tournament, and that he had a very poor excuse for doing so.

“I can’t really say much, guys. I’m just in a bad place mentally,”

Above is the original excuse that McIlroy used when he was leaving the golf course. That is what he told reporters as he was walking off, but he didn’t stick with that excuse.

Doing Poorly

The main reason that he is getting such criticism over walking off the course is because he was doing very poorly. Out of the eight holes that he played he was seven strokes over par, and things weren’t looking any better on the ninth hole when he walked off the course.

“I have been suffering with a sore wisdom tooth, which is due to come out in the near future,”

After realizing that his original excuse probably wasn’t a good enough reason for leaving the game he changed things up with this excuse above. He states that he has been suffering from wisdom tooth pain on and off for a while and that he took some Advil for the pain the night before but it came back during the match. He wasn’t able to concentrate because of all the tooth pain that he was experiencing during the match. He states that his performance and his pain were also affecting his playing partners, one of which was Ernie Els.

Ernie Els Cannot Confirm the Story

Ernie Els on the other hand says that he never heard anything about tooth pain while he was playing with McIlroy. He states that he didn’t know anything was wrong with the player at all up until he came up to him on the 18^th hole and stated “Here’s my card, I’m outta here.” Else goes on to say that while he is a fan of the young golfer, he doesn’t believe that he did the right thing during that game.

Dodging His Agent

Not only was his walk off the course mysterious, but he has been keeping his agent, Conor Ridge in the dark as well. Ridge states that “He’s not hurt, he’s not sick and he won’t answer his phone. I don’t know,” while speaking with a reporter from Golf magazine about what was ailing the player. Although McIlroy is not the first player to walk off during the middle of a match while doing poorly, most people expect better of him, including his Nike sponsors who have poured over $150 million into the player in endorsement deals. On top of exposing some of his less desirable attributes, the first half of that game also shows that his game really isn’t that solid. This isn’t the first game that he has performed poorly in. Out of the four different rounds of golf McIlroy has gone through while donning the Nike apparel, he hasn’t done well in any of them. He’s up next at the Caddilac Championship in Doral and hopefully he will be able to turn his slump around there.