{"id":476490,"date":"2026-03-15T06:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T06:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/476490\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T06:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T06:20:20","slug":"players-championship-heckled-rory-mcilroy-dismisses-preposterous-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/476490\/","title":{"rendered":"Players Championship: Heckled Rory McIlroy dismisses ‘preposterous’ theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy dismissed the “preposterous” idea TGL players are more prone to injury after finishing on the projected cut line at the 2026 Players Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McIlroy’s appearance at the unofficial fifth men’s major was in doubt after the Northern Irishman withdrew from last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational mid-competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Northern Irishman only arrived at TPC Sawgrass 20 hours before his tee time and was extremely rusty<\/a> as he carded an opening round of two-over 74 following a warm-up that saw him hit approximately 30 balls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McIlroy<\/a> improved that score by three strokes on Friday and, as things stand, is projected to make the cut on the number at one-over par and stick around for the weekend at the PGA Tour’s flagship event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reigning Masters champion, and his playing partners Hideki Matsuyama and Xander Schauffele<\/a>, drew huge crowds but not everyone was supportive of the Ulsterman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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On the fourth hole, McIlroy was heckled by a group of spectators who shouted for his ball to find the water after he hit his approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His ball did find a watery grave but he managed to hole an 11-foot putt to save bogey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“There were screams of ‘get in the water’ from in the gallery up the top of the hill,” Sky Sports’ on-course commentator, Wayne ‘Radar’ Riley, said on the broadcast. “They won’t be here for long.”<\/p>\n

The moment resurrected memories from last September’s Ryder Cup where McIlroy was frequently targeted by a volatile crowd at Bethpage Black in New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McIlroy did not address what transpired in his post-round interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Instead, he expressed his frustration at not getting the most out of his round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Not really,” he said when asked if he feels good. I wish I was further up the leaderboard.<\/p>\n

“I felt like I played well enough today to be up the leaderboard, I just couldn’t get a putt to drop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I feel like I hit the ball a bit better today than I did yesterday also, so hopefully I’ve done enough to get into the weekend and have another two days at it.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy said he is still having a hard time trusting his back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It hurts more, McIlroy said, when he is chipping or if the ball is below his feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McIlroy hasn’t missed a cut since the 2025 RBC Canadian Open. Before that, he went nearly a year without missing one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said he takes pride in having only missed approximately 30 cuts in more than 280 starts on the PGA Tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McIlroy’s official record is 244 cuts made from 276 starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But then in golf, as everyone knows, you have to sort of blow it off and move on to the next thing,” he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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“But if I had have missed the cut I probably would have added an event going into the Masters, so hopefully I’m here for the weekend and I don’t have to do that.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy dismisses TGL injury link<\/p>\n

McIlroy is not the only high-profile player struggling with injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Collin Morikawa only lasted one hole at this week’s Players after tweaking his back<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Morikawa<\/a> is the latest TGL player to sustain an injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past year, several other participants of McIlroy and Tiger Woods<\/a>‘ indoor golf league have got hurt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Xander Schauffele, Billy Horschel, Sahith Theegala and Justin Thomas have all faced protracted spells on the sidelines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horschel dismissed<\/a> the link.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And McIlroy also took a dim view when asked about it by the Palm Beach Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s a little more travel for the guys, a little more,” McIlroy said, adding that his ball speed is much higher in a competitive environment. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“To put it solely on that is preposterous.”<\/p>\n

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McIlroy said he still plans to participate in next week’s TGL matches on 17 March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also doesn’t believe Woods will play, though, despite the 15-time major champion revealing at the Genesis Invitational last Month that an appearance at The Masters wasn’t off the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy dismissed the “preposterous” idea TGL players are more prone to injury after finishing on the projected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,2623,101,45916,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-476490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sports","tag-the-players-championship","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}