Jay Monahan on Rory McIlroy's schedule: 'I don't have any concern'
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan came to the defense of Rory McIlroy, whose tournament scheduling plan will leave him out of the Memorial Tournament this week and mark the third signature event he has missed this season.
"The beauty of our model is that our players have the ability to select their schedule," Monahan told reporters on Wednesday at Muirfield Village Golf Club, site of this week's Memorial Tournament. "What Rory McIlroy has done, I think he's played in this tournament every year since 2017. And you look at the tournaments that he's supported. I don't have any concern, because you look at this on balance over time, his support of our tournaments and our partners is extraordinary."
In addition to skipping this week's 50th edition of the Memorial, the world's No. 2 player also bypassed The Sentry and the RBC Heritage, both signature events.
McIlroy, 36, raised a few eyebrows by opting to skip the Memorial Tournament in favor of next week's RBC Canadian Open.
The native of Northern Ireland has admitted to a preference of playing the week before a major championship. The Memorial Tournament and Canadian Open flipped places on the calendar this year, with the Canadian now leading directly into the June 12-15 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania.
McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam by winning the Masters last month. He earned his first green jacket and fifth career major in dramatic fashion, overcoming two double bogeys in the first round and two more on Sunday before beating England's Justin Rose in a playoff.
"Look at the season that Rory has had. He's had a life-altering season," Monahan said. "He's won the Players Championship, you win the Masters Tournament, you win the (career) Grand Slam and you win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am."
--Field Level Media
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
40 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Stick: Owen Wilson's charmingly funny golf drama is as feelgood as Ted Lasso
Golf is – apologies to fans, the ground is gonna get a little rough – inert material for TV and film. It's not explosively combative like say football, either American or actual. In golf, players interact with the environment, not each other. There is no time pressure. Physical adjustments are minute, the airborne ball impossible to see. For casual spectators, the experience mostly amounts to watching a middle-aged man shuffle above a tiny ball, like an emperor penguin sitting on an egg. The sound of even a world-beating putt is a soft plop. However, a lack of basic knowledge brought me late to Friday Night Lights, a show that became one of my favourites. I'd like to avoid making that mistake with Stick (Apple TV+, from Wednesday 4 June), so let's see. Wisely, the show isn't aiming at FNL's grit and spunk, blue-collar catharsis. Stick is funny, in a gentle, humane way. Clearly, Apple+ is attempting to hit its own marker again, the one with 'Ted Lasso' written on it in gold. Owen Wilson plays Pryce Cahill, a former pro golfer reduced to coaching retirees and pulling short cons in bars. When he catches Latino teenager Santi (Peter Dager) sneaking on to the range where he works, to ragefully hammer balls, Pryce realises the boy is a prodigy and offers to coach him. Together with his old caddy and the boy's mother, they road trip between tournaments in search of fortune. But do you know what? I think they might find something deeper. Stick's credit sequence features a ukulele playing over a series of watercolours, so you know this isn't The Wire. It's feelgood! Expect light bickering and dissolvable disputes! Frequent sporting metaphors for emotional growth! Like Community – a comedy that offered a self-aware take on the inspirational speech – Stick is aware that if you stretch such metaphors too far, they snap back into parody. 'I used to think she liked me, but she loves you,' whispers Pryce to his protege, very much in the vein of 'playing golf is like making love to a beautiful woman'. The show just about manages to have its cake and eat it. You don't need Google to enjoy Stick. I let references to knockdowns, casting and holding the finish wash over me like suds in the bath. Dager looks good swinging a stick, while Mariana Treviño, as his forthright mom Elena, improves every scene she's in. Marc Maron is winning as Mitts, a curmudgeonly caddy with a hidden heart – a trope he's made his own. The show finds its groove with the addition of Lilli Kay as Zero, a defiant club worker and love interest. With a she/they character on board, the show gets to prod at generational tension, and the problematic imbalance of mentor relationships. When Pryce admonishes Santi for his discipline, Zero warns him to stop 'prescribing late stage capitalist ideology to your great brown cash cow'. Elena advises Pryce to back off, without backing down. 'They smell fear, the gen Z-ers.' Driving it all, like a high MOI titanium club, is Owen Wilson. Something about Wilson's hair invariably makes me wonder when a weed pipe is going to appear on screen (the answer is seven minutes into the first episode). It's easy to forget he's also an Oscar-nominated writer and subtle actor. With his goofy voice, broken nose and wounded smile, he excels at playing characters who are both boyish and washed-up, full of good cheer dented by time. He's perfect as the broke, dragging-his-heels-through-a-divorce Pryce, whose Ryder Cup career ended with a televised mental breakdown on a fairway years ago. Aficionados will enjoy debating the finer points of Santi's swing. The directors get round the invisible ball problem with soaring drones and POV shots, to inject visual flair and kineticism. The show promises cameos from real-life pros including Max Homa, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa for a frisson of authenticity. With Happy Gilmore 2 coming to Netflix in July, golf fans are spoilt for choice. Which doesn't leave the rest of us out in the cold. Sport in dramas is a vehicle for storytelling, rather than being the story itself. Another tricky mentor relationship is fathering, the show's real theme. A few episodes in, I care enough to see how it plays out. Can Stick stick the landing? I wouldn't bet against it.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
250 million bees on the loose in Washington state after truck rolls over
An estimated 250 million bees are on the loose in the US state of Washington after a lorry carrying beehives rolled over on Friday. Authorities reported that a commercial lorry carrying 70,000 pounds of pollinator beehives overturned in the town of Lynden, five miles south of the border with Canada, allowing 250 million bees to make their escape. '250 million bees are now loose,' the Whatcom county sheriff's department posted on social media. 'AVOID THE AREA due to the potential of bee escape and swarming.' More than two dozen beekeepers assisted emergency responders – some of whom were stung – with recapturing the bees, a spokesman for the sheriff's department told local media. The swarm of bees was so dense, it was 'like a cloud', Derek Condit, one of the beekeepers, told local media. 'It was pretty chaotic.' Some of the beekeepers were reportedly stung over a dozen times and were using tape to plug holes in their suits. 'I've never had that many bees – angry bees – at one time,' said Russell Deptuch, another local beekeeper, in an interview with local media. The lorry was on its way to the US state of South Dakota when it rolled over early on Friday morning. However, it was a botched rescue mission several hours later which ultimately caused the mass flight as a tow truck attempted to pull the vehicle out of a ditch, causing the hives to fall off. 'Unfortunately, that didn't happen as smoothly as was hoped, and some of the beehives broke open, which caused all the bees to swarm, which is how we're in the situation we're in now,' said Matt Klein, the deputy director of the division of emergency management for the sheriff's department, in a statement. The aim of the recovery operation is to save as many bees as possible and allow them to re-hive and find their queen, which the sheriff's department estimated would take one or two days. Although there is a large number of bees needing to be recaptured, the insects are social and drawn to their hives, meaning they are likely to stay near the truck. 'That's where their queen and the next generation of bees (the 'brood') are located,' Gene Robinson, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told The New York Times. Each hive tends to contain between 40,000 and 60,000 bees, Mr Robinson said. As of Friday afternoon, the beekeepers and emergency responders had restored most of the hives, and the majority of the insects are expected to return by Saturday morning, the sheriff's department said. Until then, the road has been closed and the public advised to stay at least 200 yards from the area.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Mao Saigo fires 66 for US Women's Open lead as she chases second major of year
Mao Saigo already won her first major title this year. She's putting herself in position for another at US Women's Open. Saigo shot a 6-under 66 on Friday to take second-round lead at Erin Hills. At 8-under 136, the 23-year-old Japanese player had a three-stroke advantage over a group of six led by top-ranked Nelly Korda. If Saigo maintains this pace, she would finish at 16 under to match the score Brooks Koepka had in winning the US Open at Erin Hills in 2017. Koepka matched a US Open record. Saigo was asked whether 16 under might be within reach. 'It is very difficult to compare,' she said through an intepretor. 'All I can say is that I will do my best, and as a result, I would like to make a good result.' Saigo won Chevron Championship in a playoff outside Houston just over a month ago for her first LPGA Tour title. Korda, who has never finished higher than a tie for eighth in the US Women's Open, had a 67. That's the best round she's had in the event. 'I feel like I've had a very complicated relationship with US Opens,' Korda said, 'but I'm happy to be in the position I am heading into the weekend.' She was 5 under with Hinako Shibuno (69), Sarah Schmelzel (68), Maja Stark (69), Yealimi Noh (71) and 2020 U.S. Women's Open champion A Lim Kim (71). Jing Yan (69), Lin Grant (69), Chiara Tamburlini (71) and Jinhee Im (72) were 4 under. After not making a birdie until her 18th hole Thursday, Korda had seven of them Friday thanks to her improved putting. 'Honestly, I was hitting really good putts yesterday,' Korda said. 'I was hitting it exactly where I wanted to and they just weren't falling. It was one of those days. Today I did the same thing.' Kim was one of 18 competitors still on the course finishing their rounds when weather concerns halted play for about 54 minutes. Kim was alone in second place at 6 under and playing No 17 when the delay happened. The 29-year-old from South Korea said she waited out the delay in a car. Kim then returned to make par on No 17 before bogeying the par-5 18th to fall back into a tie for second. Kim said she still likes where she stands midway through the tournament. 'Really good position,' Kim said. 'I love to chase the leader, so let me see.' Saigo made sure everyone would be chasing her this weekend as she bounced back from some early misfortune. After starting out at No 10 and getting birdies on No 11 and No 12, Saigo bogeyed the par-5 No 14 when she got a bad break. Her third shot hit the flagstick, bounced backward and rolled all the way to a bunker. But she recovered by getting four birdies in a five-hole stretch from Nos 16-2. 'I thought that was not my mistake,' Saigo said. 'I just thought to myself that it was just unlucky, and then I just changed my mind.' Play was suspended due to darkness Friday night with 12 players unable to finish.
