Rory McIlroy Sent Justin Rose a Congratulatory Text on Winning a Gold Medal

Rory McIlroy, who withdrew from the Olympics in June and said before the Open Championship, “I’ll probably watch the Olympics. But I’m not sure golf will be one of the events I watch,” definitely watched some Olympic golf.

McIlroy sent gold medal winner Justin Rose a congratulatory text message.

"“Yeah, I did get one from Rory, absolutely,” Rose said. “He was very, very proud. Said he was pulling for me. He said basically he could see how much it meant to me, and congratulations. He was very complimentary.” "

One might assume that would be a positive and lead to the possibility of seeing McIlroy in Tokyo in 2020, but Rose also said that McIlroy has some personal opinions on golf in the Olympics.

"“He made the point that he really wants golf to succeed as an Olympic sport,” Rose said of the McIlroy messages. “He has some of his own personal opinions on it that are very personal to him, and that’s fine. But as a whole he’s very much behind golf succeeding in the Olympics.” “Obviously, he watched.”"

Without knowing for sure exactly what those opinions are, here are five guesses as to what McIlroy doesn’t like regarding the Olympics:

1. The PGA schedule is all messed up. There was only a week between the Open Championship and PGA Championship, and only a week between the finish of the Olympics and the FedExCup playoffs.

2. McIlroy had to choose between representing Northern Ireland or Great Britain, where as in the Ryder Cup he represents Europe.

3. The format of individual stroke play doesn’t seem as fun as a two-man team format.

4. The Zika virus. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

5. McIlroy is tired of being told that he is responsible for “growing the game.”

Of course those are just guesses and it could be something totally unrelated to any of them, but until Rory extrapolates on his statements he made before the Open Championship we’re left to guess.

[Golf Channel]