Rory McIlroy: Call to Paul McGinley was so tough

Rory McIlroy says that telling Paul McGinley he was not going to compete at the Olympics was “one of the toughest phone calls I’ve had to make”.

McIlroy, who is due to marry fiancee Erica Stoll next year, opted out of representing Ireland in Rio after citing his concerns over the zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus which has been linked to defects in newborn babies and Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.

World number one Jason Day and US Open runner-up Shane Lowry also withdrew their names from consideration this week, while Graeme McDowell made himself unavailable as his wife is due to give birth to their second child during the Games. They joined a growing list of players which includes Australian pair Marc Leishman and Adam Scott, South Africa’s Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen, and Charl Schwartzel, and Fiji’s Vijay Singh.