Rory McIlroy: 'There's no room in golf for people to abuse someone on the course'

Rory McIlroy on the fourth fairway during the final round of the BMW Championship. Picture: AP Photo/Nick Wass

At the end of the longest season in PGA Tour history and his first full year as a father, Rory McIlroy has spoken of being mentally and physically exhausted as he heads into this week’s season finale.

“It's hard to feel fresh at this time in the season – it all just sort of catches up with you,” McIlroy said before the PGA Tour’s playoffs even started.

Despite all that and the fact he’ll start this week’s Tour Championship already eight strokes behind leader Patrick Cantlay, McIlroy is especially thankful for one thing – he’s not Bryson DeChambeau.

“I would say it's pretty tough to be Bryson DeChambeau right now,” McIlroy said.

DeChambeau has been golf’s tallest lightning rod all summer. He’s currently boycotting all non-partnered media over the coverage of his repeated missteps including criticizing his equipment, not yelling “Fore!” on errant drives and his bizarre explanation for not getting vaccinated and missing the Olympics because of a positive Covid test.

But it’s the fallout from his long-running feud with Brooks Koepka that has generated derisive taunts of “Brooksie!” everywhere DeChambeau goes that has made life miserable for the American all summer. And PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan declared new fan behaviour policy on Tuesday that would not tolerate “disrespectful” shouts directed at players and potentially lead to expulsion from the course.

McIlroy, the current chairman of the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council, endorses the commissioner’s crackdown on fan behaviour.

“As golfers I feel like we're held to a higher standard than other sports and other athletes and I think because of that the people that come to watch us play should be held to a higher standard as well,” McIlroy said Wednesday. “And enforcing that... there's no room in golf for people to abuse someone on the golf course when all they're trying to do is do their best and win a golf tournament and follow their dreams. So there's no place for that in our game. And that might sound a little stiff or snobby or whatever, but that's golf and we have traditions.

McIlroy, who has encountered his share of taunting abuse at Ryder Cups and has often thrived in that unique environment, feels sympathy for DeChambeau. The verbal taunts have escalated through the summer and reached a tipping point last week at Caves Valley when DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay engaged in a riveting duel that lasted six extra playoff holes after matching Sunday 66s. DeChambeau angrily confronted a fan who shouted “Nice job, Brooksie!” as he was walking off the course after losing the playoff.

“I certainly feel some sympathy for him because I certainly don't think that you should be ostracized or criticized for being different – and I think we have all known from the start that Bryson is different and he is not going to conform to the way people want him to be,” McIlroy said. “He is his own person. He thinks his own thoughts and everyone has a right to do that.

“There are certainly things that he has done in the past that have brought some of this stuff on himself. I'm not saying that he's completely blameless in this. But at the same time, I think he has been getting a pretty rough go of it of late and it's actually pretty sad to see because he, deep down I think, is a nice person and all he wants to do is try to be the best golfer he can be. And it just seems like every week something else happens and I would say it's pretty tough to be Bryson DeChambeau right now.

“And I don't know if anyone else on tour has spoken up for him, but I definitely feel for him a little bit. And I agree, I don't think he's completely blameless in all this, but at the same time, I think he's trying to become better and he's trying to learn from his mistakes and I think everyone should give him a chance to try to do that.”

DeChambeau aside, McIlroy believes fan behaviour at golf tournaments in general has deteriorated in recent years.

“I think it's different,” he said. “As golfers, there's a very thin rope that separates us from the fans, and then you hit a shot off line, and you have to go into the fans to hit it. So we get a little closer to them than some other sports. Yeah, I think some of it crosses the line.

“I think certain other sports culture has fed into our game and fed into the fan base that's definitely affected it. And people will make the argument that, well, it happens in every other sport. But I would say that we're not any other sport and I think golf should hold itself to a higher standard. I mean, the players are certainly held to a higher standard than other sports, so why wouldn't our fan base be?”

That said, McIlroy doesn’t expect only polite applause for every shot once the Ryder Cup commences in three weeks at Whistling Straits. He knows it takes a thicker skin to handle that kind of more partisan environment.

“Especially the ones that are played in the United States,” he said. “Someone once told me awhile back, if you don't take anything personally, you'll live a very happy life, and I think I try to do that all the time. You just try to let it slide off, not take things personally and if you can do that and if you can train yourself to think that way, it certainly makes it easier.

“I think I've tried to train myself to think about it and think on purpose rather than react. I think the more you react to it, the more it gets at you. But the more you actually think about it and break it down and it just, it becomes less meaningful and you can just sort of let it roll off.”

He cites his emotional singles match in 2018 at Hazeltine against Patrick Reed as a prime example of what he’s learned about fan engagement from experience.

“I expended so much energy during that week, not just competing on the golf course, but also just everything else that was going on that, everything sort of reached a crescendo on that eighth green on Sunday, and I think both of us, I think both Patrick and I, we certainly didn't keep that level of play up for the entire match,” he said. “And I think we both sort of came down a little bit from that, but he... made birdie at the last and ended up winning 1-up.

“I took a lot from that. I learned a lot from that and I hopefully won't make the same mistake again this year because you only have so much energy, and you can only use it for an amount of time.”