Rory McIlroy’s provocative workout poses prompt concerns for his long-term fitness

Rory McIlroy’s newly sculpted physique has generated quite a bit of interest of late, what with a Nike ad showing off his workout routine and Men’s Health stripping the world No. 1 down to his skivvies for a recent photo shoot.

While some may welcome the addition of flat-bellied beefcake to the usual pics of women in various titillating poses (what is that draped over Lexi Thompson’s pectoral area on Golf Digest’s May Fitness cover, anyway?), others worry that McIlroy may be sacrificing staying power to win now with all that weight-lifting. After all, look what the obsession with training did to Tiger Woods, the pundits are saying.

Woods’ former swing coach Butch Harmon kicked things off when he warned McIlroy about getting too buff.

“The only caution I would give Rory is, I see a lot of pictures of him lifting a lot of very heavy weights and I think, in a way, you can almost hurt yourself in the gym if you get too bulky,” Harmon said last week.

Others, who had, until the new evidence of his rippling muscles and washboard abs went viral over the past couple of weeks, shied away from lumping Rory in with Tiger, are now voicing their apprehensions.

Brandel Chamblee, who’s 52, acknowledged that his age may tinge his views on gym rats.

“This is another era that’s talking, so I’m cognizant of the fact I could have missed the boat here,” the Golf Channel analyst said during a pre-Masters conference call earlier this week, “but when I see all these squats being done in the gym, it makes me nervous for his longevity. I get why he’s doing it, but it makes me nervous for his longevity.

“There’s an epidemic of injuries in the game right now, and I can’t help but think that a lot of it has to do with just how rigorous guys are training in the gym,” said Chamblee, who has not hesitated to rip Woods for being too ripped. “Some of it has to do with the way they swing, too, but it worries me a little bit.”

Peter Jacobsen, whose heyday on the PGA Tour was back in the 1980s to mid-‘90s, agreed with Chamblee. Hey -- Sam Snead didn’t lift no weights.

“If you look at the fluidity of his swing and his beautiful tempo and how long he played and how well he played for that length of time, I don’t think he lifted one weight in his life,” said Jacobsen. “In fact, lifting weights, going to the gym was not a part of the PGA Tour until probably maybe around when Tiger first came out.”

Jacobsen contended that “nobody went to the gym” back in the mid-1970s to mid-‘80s, because of the fear of injuries. He conceded, however, that golf in the dark ages was “a different game.

“Speed and power was not really the defining factor of the game then. It was all about accuracy and tempo and consistency and short game,” said Jacobsen, who now fears McIlroy will hurt himself with too much weight training.

“I worry about sacrificing that long-term ability for the short-term success,” he said. “Injury is what scares me about guys that spend too much time in the gym.”

Nick Faldo, who gushed about how “absolutely chiseled” Rory was a year ago, Thursday scoffed at the notion that “throwing 200 and 300 weights around is going to be good for my golf swing.”

The 55-year-old Faldo, who will be part of the CBS crew broadcasting from Augusta, joked during his network’s telecon that, “the heaviest weight I would ever lift was my body weight ... You can play some pretty good golf when you’ve just got some decent shoulders on you and a strong neck and a strong pair of hands.”

Paul Azinger, another 50-something, threw his weight behind the anti-weight-lifting movement as well.

“I am concerned about one thing,” the ESPN analyst said during a teleconference promoting that network’s Augusta coverage. “It is not a requirement to get in the Hall of Fame or to win all four majors to be as fit as [McIlroy] seems to be striving to be.

“His body has changed since I saw him at the British Open. His arms have gotten a lot bigger and I’ve recently seen where he’s pressing all these giant weights. I’m wondering what’s the motivation behind that. It’s certainly not a requirement to be great,” said Azinger of the four-time major champion who would complete the career grand slam with a win next week at the Masters. “They give out Player of the Year, not Fitness of the Year, not Best Swing of the Year. It’s Player of the Year. That’s the award.”

It’s not all about age, though, since such naysaying just ticks off Gary Player, the original Mr. Fitness, who, at 79, could probably bench press the lot of those who would squelch the workout regimens of Messieurs Woods and McIlroy.