Injured Rory McIlroy may skip FedEx Cup playoffs to rest up for 2018 and the Masters

Rory Mcilroy saved his best play for the last round at Quail Hollow, but despite the lift he said he got from posting a final-round 3-under 68 (after 72-72-73), the four-time major champion may join Tiger Woods on the DL for the rest of the 2017 season.

For some time, the 28-year-old from Northern Ireland has been experiencing spasms in his upper back that may force him to shut it down through the FedExCup playoffs and the European Tour’s final Race to Dubai events. The overriding aim for McIlroy is to be healthy enough to compete at the Masters early next year and give himself a chance to complete the career grand slam.

“I have a good bit of time to get healthy and address a few things going forward,” McIlroy, an early favorite to win the PGA Championship, told reporters after finishing with four birdies and a bogey in an early round in Sunday’s PGA finale. “The next big thing is April, and that’s really what my focus will be on from now until then.”

It has been three years since McIlroy captured his most recent major championship, the 2014 PGA in Louisville. He missed seven weeks earlier this season as he nursed a fractured rib incurred in January. The problem flared up at The Players Championship in May but he seemed to be swinging freely and with great strength at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, where he repeatedly clocked drives of 300 yards and better.

His brute strength was on full display when he pretty much broke the driving range at Quail Hollow ahead of the final major on the men’s 2017 calendar.

McIlroy had not previously disclosed a problem with his back, the part of the body that has plagued Woods since before his first of multiple surgeries in March 2014.

“Right now I can feel my left rhomboid going into spasm,” McIlroy said after finishing T22 at Quail Hollow where, at 1-over, he was nine shots back of winner Justin Thomas. “It’s sort of the way it has been the last few weeks. I have upped my practice coming into these two events because I wanted to feel like I was in a good place in my game.”

This has been a season of upheaval for McIlroy, who, in addition to the injuries, switched from Nike to TaylorMade clubs and split from longtime caddie J.P. Fitzgerald as he added old friend Harry Diamond to his bag, at least for the short term.

“I don’t have one,” he said about who will be looping for him wherever and whenever he tees it up again. “Everything is up in the air because I don’t know when I’m going to play next, where I’m going to play next.”

But who will handle McIlroy’s luggage going forward appears to be a question for another day — if not another year, given his current physical struggles.

“It’s a tough one because I go out there and play and shoot decent scores,” said McIlroy, who is winless worldwide since earning last year’s FedEx Cup.

”But when I come off the course, I feel my left rhomboid going into spasm. Inside of my left arm goes numb,” McIlroy added. “So I don’t know what to do. I have got this next week off to assess what I need to go forward.”

He will use the week to confab with his trainer in Northern Ireland and determine where he goes from here — and when. A decidedly smaller McIlroy had already curtailed his workout regimen and cut back on range sessions after partially blaming his condition on overzealous practice and too many reps put in auditioning new sticks.

McIlroy believes he had given his original rib injury time to heal but after getting married shortly after this year’s Masters he went full bore into practicing for The Players Championship in May.

“An injury like this, it’s eight full weeks of rest before you start to rehab it and then you go again,” he said. “I felt like we took as much time as we needed to at the start of the year. That was basically seven or eight weeks. Got back and playing it felt okay through the Masters.”

After his honeymoon, McIlroy was gung-ho to get back to the range, which did not allow his rib to heal completely.

“Once I started practicing again, I didn’t build up the volume gradually,” he conceded. “I went from zero to hitting balls from three or four hours a day. That aggravated it a little bit … I wanted to play the season. I feel like I’m capable of playing well and winning and putting rounds together. If I want to challenge on a more consistent basis, I need to get 100 percent healthy.”

The pain, McIlroy said, had lessened but still hampered his efforts.

“It’s not as bad [but] it’s there. I can feel it,” he said. “I can play 18 holes. I warm up, it’s okay. But once I get done, having to go through the whole routine of getting it ready to go again the next day, you shouldn’t have to do that. If it was injury-free, that wouldn’t happen.”

In addition to missing the chance to defend his FedEx Cup title, and the four events in the playoff series, McIlroy could skip the Euro Tour’s season-ending events. His schedule, though, remained unclear as he prepared to leave North Carolina for the U.K.

“Look, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “You might not see me until next year. You might see me in a couple of weeks’ time. It really depends.”