World No. 1 Rory McIlroy will be back on the course prepping for the season’s final major at Whistling Straits on Saturday, according to a report from Reuters. McIlroy had to pass on a defense of his 2014 Open Championship and his 2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational win but it appears he will at least try to give it a go and defend his PGA Championship title in 10 days.
Injured Rory McIlroy will play PGA Championship practice round, according to report
It appeared the top ranked player in the world might not return to golf in 2015, but a report now indicates that Rory McIlroy will prep for the PGA Championship this weekend.
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McIlroy ruptured his anterior ligament in his left ankle playing soccer with friends on July 4th weekend. He announced the injury in an Instagram photo but no further specifics or updates were added since that original post. With only basic details, doctors parachuted into different media outlets saying McIlroy could be out two weeks or his season could be over with a 12-week recovery.
Rory quickly removed speculation about playing The Open with another Instagram photo and didn’t even bother showing up at St. Andrews to test it out last month. The same happened with this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, an event that’s extremely lucrative, competitive, and one of the season’s biggest non-major events. Only two of the top 50 players in the world are not in the field, and McIlroy delivered that bad news to the hosts in Akron last week that he would not be back to defend.
The Reuters report is the first sliver of news that McIlroy will try to play again this year. Darren Clarke confused everyone at The Open when he said Rory was done for 2015, then said he was joking, or maybe not. Irish golf writer Brian Keogh, who is plugged in to all Rory news and developments, added this.
Reuters story that McIlroy has booked practice at Whistling Straits comes after talk he practiced in Portugal recently. Good for the PGA.
— Brian Keogh (@IrishGolfDesk) August 3, 2015 A fully healthy McIlroy, winner of two PGA Championships, would be the favorite at Whistling Straits, where he finished one shot out of a playoff as a 21 year old when the event was held there in 2010. If Rory does practice this weekend and all goes well, it’s likely Jordan Spieth still remains the favorite with still so much uncertainty surrounding the world No. 1’s ability to plant off that ankle and hit his usual bombs off the tee.
UPDATE: Keogh now relays that Rory’s publicist has denied such a Saturday “booking” at the site of this year’s PGA Championship.
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