Rory McIlroy missing British Open will be ‘greatest disappointment of his career,’ says Paul Azinger

Rory McIlroy’s peers support his decision to risk the defense of his British Open title on a meaningless kick-around with his friends, but one former PGA Tour player believes the world No. 1 will mightily regret the resulting ankle injury that knocked him out of next week’s major tilt.

“That’s an unforced error and it’s going to be one of his greatest disappointments, I think, in his entire career that he’s not going to be able to defend at St. Andrews,” ESPN analyst Paul Azinger said during a Wednesday teleconference promoting the contest at the home of golf. “I think it will hit him like a ton of bricks when the bell rings on Thursday and he’s not there.”

Azinger’s somber pronouncement stood in stark contrast to the lighthearted way in which McIlroy announced that the ruptured ligaments he sustained in his left ankle while playing soccer on July 4 had forced him out of the Open Championship lineup. The four-time major champion posted a photo of the famous ankle wrapped in a boot as he watched Andy Murray compete at Wimbledon.

It’s a recumbent position McIlroy may have to become familiar with, if the prognostications of some medical experts and fellow golfers are on target. It took Scottish golfer Richie Ramsay three months to get back on the course after ripping the ligaments in his ankle some time ago, and even then ...

Still, though they were disappointed for him, McIlroy’s mates stoutly defended his right to choose whatever off-course activities suited him. Phil Mickelson took time out from preparing for this week’s Scottish Open to recall his own brush with mortality when he snapped his femur in half in a skiing mishap and had to miss the 1994 Masters.

“I said then, and I feel the same way now, you can’t live your life in fear,” Mickelson told reporters. “You have to enjoy the moment. I didn’t feel like anything he (McIlroy) was doing was unnecessary risk. He was just playing around and accidents happen.

“People get hurt taking a shower and doing normal day-to-day things,” Mickelson observed. “You can’t stop living your life.”

Seven-time PGA Tour winner Matt Kuchar echoed Mickelson’s sentiments.

“I don’t think you can stop living your life. You can’t form a bubble around yourself,” Kuchar, who had to skip last year’s PGA Championship when his back went into spasm from sitting in a car too long, said on Tuesday from Gullane, Scotland. “You can’t protect everything. I don’t think you stop doing what you’ve always done to this point. It’s too bad, but I don’t want to say he made a terrible decision in doing what he did. It’s just bad luck and those things happen.”

Across the Atlantic, Jordan Spieth, McIlroy’s would-be rival who is going for three straight major victories in a row next week, conceded he might not ski for fear of an injury that could affect his career. He did, however, relate how a shark nearly yanked his arm off during a post-U.S. Open deep-sea fishing trip.

Spieth had a large tuna on the line for about an hour when some sharks tried to horn in on the act.

“The captain was scaring them off, banging on the boat and on the water, and all of a sudden it just rips back down again. I almost got pulled in,” Spieth said from the John Deere Classic, where the world No. 2 will tune up for the Open Championship.

“It was so much heavier,” said Spieth. “What surfaced was like a 12-foot long, 300-pound black tip shark that had eaten this tuna and then had hooked itself, so I guess I caught both in one because I got that shark.”

After some two and a half hours of fighting the shark, Spieth’s arm was listless but he was not going to let his friends reel in his catch.

“The competitive side of me, I didn’t want to give up until I actually couldn’t move my arm anymore and then just needed about five minutes of shaking it,” he said. “It was sore for a couple days, but I’m good now.”

Which is more than one can say for the guy formerly favored to halt Spieth’s run at the calendar Grand Slam, and Azinger was less understanding of his plight than were McIlroy’s associates.

“He’s going to have a lot of reflecting to do,” Azinger said. “It’s a great opportunity lost ... and he’ll never get it back. It’s likely he’ll never get this chance again, and he’s going to really feel that pain, I think, once the bell rings on Thursday.”

If it’s any consolation -- and for sure, it won’t be -- McIlroy enters the record books along with two greats of the game. He will become the first Open winner not to defend since Ben Hogan in 1954 and the first golfer unable to attempt to repeat at a major since Tiger Woods missed the 2008 PGA Championship.

So, Rory has that going for him.