Playing partners Rory and G-Mac must park management split
McDowell surprisingly lifted the lid last week in Bulgaria on McIlroy’s decision to sever a five-year management deal with Horizon Sports Management.
However, neither Horizon nor the double Major winner has issued a formal statement confirming split.
A rival management representative predicts it could cost McIlroy upwards of £10m to opt out of the contract he signed some 18 months ago.
But when McIlroy was approached yesterday following a practice round ahead of this week’s flagship BMW PGA Championship, he bluntly responded: “Ask G-Mac. He knows more than me.”
McDowell expressed his disappointment in losing McIlroy as a stablemate and said: “When we are not on our game we have a tendency to, and I am not going to say make wrong decisions, but we do question everything in our lives, what we are doing and sometimes we have to make changes.”
Those changes are expected to see McIlroy’s father Gerry take over as head of the golfer’s business affairs and also McIlroy’s current Horizon agent, Sean O’Flaherty, moving to work with him.
However, in fairness to McIlroy, he was later observed on the practice range congratulating McDowell on last week’s Volvo World Match-Play Championship victory.
Then, in a bizarre twist, officials released the draw for the opening two rounds of the event with the Ireland duo drawn together alongside Scotland’s Paul Lawrie.
The trio join the nine other ‘Medinah Miracle’ workers from last year’s Ryder Cup all competing this week on Wentworth’s notorious ‘Burma Road’ course.
Meanwhile, Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley yesterday revealed he will have three wild card picks for the clash with the USA at Gleneagles in 2014.
That will leave nine places to be taken by qualifiers — the first four from the European points list and five from the world points list.
“We have acknowledged that most of our strong players in the top 50 in the world are based on the PGA Tour and I want to get a combination of that and I want to get guys who are representing and playing well on the European Tour,” McGinley explained at Wentworth yesterday.
“I want them to have an opportunity to make the team because it’s virtually impossible if you’re not in the top 50.
“Edoardo Molinari in 2010 had an incredible year on the European Tour [winning twice], yet didn’t make the points list and had to rely on a pick.
“I think in the big scheme of things it’s going to help the European Tour because guys who do show a lot of form on the European Tour, I’m going to be watching very closely and they are going to rank very highly with a possible opportunity of a pick.”
Players with good form at the Scottish venue and experience of playing in bad weather will rank “very highly” in the list of contenders, said McGinley.
“The big determining factor was that the examination paper at Gleneagles is quite different than it was at Medinah [where McGinley was a vice-captain to Jose Maria Olazabal].
“We don’t know what the weather is going to be like. There could be waterproofs, there could be rain, there could be sunshine. I have to be mindful of all those aspects when I’m tailoring the team and this is why I feel I need a little bit of wiggle room to make sure that I can lean the team in that direction with people who will be comfortable in playing in all of those elements should we come across them.
“One of the criteria will be history on the golf course, how many times they have played it and if they won or performed well around it. I’m a great believer in horses for courses.”
The decision brings McGinley in line with American counterpart Tom Watson, who announced in March that he was reducing his number of picks from four to three.
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