Is Rory McIlroy on the verge of becoming his generation’s Tiger Woods — not as the most dominant golfer among his peers, but the most injured? Paul Azinger believes it has everything to do with the four-time major winner’s balls-to-the-wall workout regimen.
Paul Azinger questions Rory McIlroy’s fitness: ‘Pudgy Rory never got hurt’
Rory has missed some time this year with a troublesome rib injury and Paul Azinger questions whether McIlroy’s fitness routine is to blame for injuries.
“Pudgy Rory never got hurt,” Fox Sports U.S. Open analyst Azinger said on Wednesday, according to GolfDigest.com, “but fit Rory’s getting hurt a lot.”
Azinger was skeptical of the fitness of the world’s No. 2 golfer.
“I question fitness. If you think fitness makes you better it probably makes you better,” the former Ryder Cup captain said. “But I guess there’s a point of diminishing return, if you’re not careful.”
Questioning golfers’ fitness has become something of a cottage industry for pundits like Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee, who has continually jabbed Tiger Woods for getting so ripped that it hurt his game and his health. Chamblee has also wondered about Rory’s weightlifting routine.
And then there was Johnny Miller at last year’s Open going on about Rory’s tight shirts and bulging muscles.
“I think he overdid the weight room, personally. I don’t think that helped him at all. I think [the] same thing with Tiger Woods,” NBC Sports’ lead golf analyst Miller said during the third-round telecast. “You just get carried away with wearing the tight shirts and showing off their sort of muscles.”
Even casual golf fans remember when McIlroy exploded onto the golf scene as a somewhat doughier version of his current hard-body self. A nagging rib injury has forced Rory to miss time in 2017, though he told reporters Tuesday that he “has no limitation” in his swing.
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