Rory McIlroy burns critics of his gym routine

Johnny Miller and all the other critics of Rory McIlroy’s workout regimen don’t know what the heck they’re talking about, according to the ripped man himself.

Miller, you may recall, bashed McIlroy during the final round of the British Open for being too buff. It was in the midst of the Ulsterman’s 15-month PGA Tour winless drought that Miller said McIlroy was “carried away with wearing the tight shirts and showing off their sort of muscles.”

Offering an opinion shared by Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee and others, Miller said at the time that golf was “a game of finesse and touch” that required “a certain amount of strength,” and that Rory had “a little too much” of the latter.

After watching McIlroy overcome a six-shot deficit to win the Deutsche Bank Championship on Monday (his first tour win since the 2015 Wells Fargo Championship), thanks in large part to a rejuvenated touch on the greens, Miller may want to take a mulligan on those comments. For sure, the four-time major winner believes Johnny, et al, ought to stick to what they know.

“I think when people make judgments or criticisms without being educated on the subject that they’re criticizing, I think that’s -- like for me getting in the gym, for example, that’s my pet peeve,” McIlroy said after posting a final-round 6-under 65 to get to 15-under for the Labor Day weekend tourney at TPC Boston. “Someone that says to me you’re in the gym too much.”

McIlroy had struggled with his putting for months until he enlisted the services of Henrik Stenson’s flat-stick guru, Phil Kenyon. It’s his Tiger Woods-like weight training that Rory credits for his prodigious length off the tee and his overall skill set.

“The reason that I play at such a high level, and hopefully will continue to play at a high level for the next 10, 15 years is because of the work I did in the gym,” McIlroy said. “If I wasn’t in the gym, I wouldn’t be here sitting today. It’s a big part of who I am, it’s a big part of my success. That’s always I feel an unfair criticism.”

All the “critics and the analysts and everyone that are out there,” pretty much “know what they’re talking about” when it comes to assessing his golf game. But zip it when it comes to lifting.

“A criticism of my golf game, I take it, and I know what I need to work on and sometimes those people point out the obvious,” said McIlroy. “But, yeah, I would say that’s the most unfair criticism I receive, is what I do in the gym.”