Rory McIlroy warned he could lose fans over “puzzling decision”

Golf fans could start to turn their back on Rory McIlroy if the Masters champion continues to dodge post-round media requests, Brandel Chamblee has argued.

McIlroy snubbed reporters for a sixth major championship round in a row at the US Open on Friday, just after making the cut following a gritty second round at Oakmont Country Club.

And after hurling a club and smashing a tee marker before scraping through to the weekend with a 72, McIlroy’s mysterious malaise was under the microscope once more.

“We thought that winning a major, winning The Masters was going to unlock him,” Paul McGinley said on Sky Sports. “It looks like it’s burdened him more than anything else.”

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Indeed, McIlroy missed the cut amid driver woes at the PGA Championship last month and then recorded one of the worst results in his career at the Canadian Open last weekend.

While McIlroy did speak to reporters at TPC Toronto, he decided to give the media a wide berth at the PGA Championship – a decision made after he was p****ed off about a controversial leak about his non-conforming driver at Quail Hollow.

And the trend in the big time events has continued in Pittsburgh, where McIlroy has turned down media requests in each of his first two rounds.

NBC analyst Chamblee thinks McIlroy is playing a dangerous game.

“In my view, Rory has been the best with the media over the last 15 years,” Chamblee stressed on X, “which makes his refusal to talk after his rounds at the last two majors so puzzling.

“I think he is lithe enough to understand this is a bad long term strategy. Fans are fickle. They are incredibly generous to those who give back to them and vicious to those who turn their backs to them.

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“Given that Rory is one of the game’s biggest leaders, him not talking has tricky normative implications in my opinion. Why have past greats (Tiger almost always talked, even after poor rounds) been so generous with the media?

“Perhaps it’s out of a sense of duty, following a custom passed down to them by the players that came before them who understood that the debt you pay to those who elevated the game before you is by elevating the game for those who come after you.

“I hope Rory reconsiders his opposition to talking to the media after rounds, because it sends a message to his peers and to those young players who will be on the tour in the coming years.”

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.