{"id":644104,"date":"2026-05-15T05:39:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T05:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644104\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T05:39:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T05:39:19","slug":"rory-mcilroy-left-red-faced-after-complaint-before-pga-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644104\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy left red-faced after complaint before PGA Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy’s PGA Championship got off to a tricky start on Thursday, with the golfer finding a tree with his first shot of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Ironically, it came after the 37-year-old had bemoaned the lack of trees around the course at Aronimink.<\/p>\n

Prior to the start of the second major of the season, McIlroy suggested that tournament organisers were wrong to take them down.<\/p>\n

“It’s basically bash driver down there and then figure it out,” he said when asked about his strategy.<\/p>\n

“When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.<\/p>\n

“I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here – same kind of thing.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy could easily have been forgiven for thinking that the lack of trees would enable a smoother pathway to the green.<\/p>\n

Yet with his first shot of the competition, the two-time Masters champion sent his effort right into one, with the ball then ricocheting onto the rough. <\/p>\n

\"Rory<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy’s PGA Championship got off to a tricky start on Thursday, with the golfer finding a tree with his first shot of the tournament<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

Trees have been a big talking point at the course, with Aronimink chiefs clearing the biggest ones over the past two decades.<\/p>\n

And McIlroy isn’t the only golfer to discuss their removal, with Xander Schauffele also unimpressed with the revelopment that’s been done.<\/p>\n

“When I hear certain designers say they’re restoring a course to 1915, I’m like, ‘It probably takes a hundred years for a nice tree to grow- and now you’re pulling it out just to say it was there before,'” he said.<\/p>\n

“People keep talking about distance, but just put trees on a course.”<\/p>\n

\"RoryFive things to know about Rory McIlroy | GETTY<\/p>\n

Jon Rahm has been equally as critical.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been making this joke for the last few years where I see a lot of golf courses coming in saying, look, 100 years ago, this golf course was like this, there was no trees,” he remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like, well, in the back of my mind, they planted those trees with the future vision of having those trees in play, and now you\u2019re taking them all out. <\/p>\n

“While I see both points, I don\u2019t know which one is more valid than the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, McIlroy has been suffering with a blister going into the big event.<\/p>\n

He’s adamant he’s fine to play, however, with the Northern Irishman taking steps to combat the issue.<\/p>\n

\"Rory<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy has been a vocal critic of the lack of trees at the PGA Championship<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

He used extra padding, separated his little toe from the others and switched to a wider shoe that is half a size larger than normal.<\/p>\n

“I figured it out and separated the little toe from the other ones and a bit of cushion around it definitely helped,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And then just going to a bigger shoe and a different style of shoe as well, a little wider and a little softer in the toe box.”<\/p>\n

McIlroy then completed nine holes of practice on Wednesday and came away encouraged by the progress.<\/p>\n

“I was pleasantly surprised how good it felt,” he said. “Walking downhill, whenever your foot slides into the very end of your shoe is when it maybe gives me a bit of bother, but it’s totally fine.<\/p>\n

“A mountain out of a molehill.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy’s PGA Championship got off to a tricky start on Thursday, with the golfer finding a tree…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,3,6082,1079,99,25,194,242733],"class_list":["post-644104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-news","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-us-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}