My, the lad does seem to be sucking up most of the available oxygen, doesn't he?
First he bounces back from his break-up with fiancee Caroline Wozniacki by sulking through two desultory rounds and missing the cut winning the prestigious BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. Would you like a little more salt in that open wound, Caroline?
Caroline Wozniacki played tennis in a lovely old arena at Roland Garros yesterday but would
rather have been in Belfast, asking Rory McIlroy to his face why he left her this way. Except that the last time he called, less than a day after telling her how much he loved her, it was a three-minute conversation she thought was a joke.
That 3-minute call has generated some buzz, and Brian Keough takes a stab at identifying the source:
The tale of the three-minute call names no sources but we are led to assume by The Times, that it was her father Piotr:
"Walking through the ground a few minutes after his daughter had kept it all together, I bumped into her father Piotr, the defining influence on her life and tennis career. “We speak as friends, yes, this is just between us,” he said and tried to explain what had happened in the past few days as much as his limited English would allow."
OK, I'm not completely sure why people read this silly blog, but I'm guessing that relationship advice is pretty far down the list. That said, I'll agree that a 3-minute call sounds bad, but we can probably agree that there's no good way and that the shock of the announcement precludes a productive discussion. I actually thought another tidbit, that he had told her how much he loved her in the prior call, was the more damning. But no one who calls off a wedding after the invitations have been posted is going to be a candidate for sainthood.
Then there was this from the Keough piece:
In a piece told us that McIlroy was to "let ex fiancee Caroline Wozniacki keep €150k engagement ring", Melanie Finn quotes an unnamed source as saying, “They were together nearly three years and that time meant a lot to him so he would like to see her keep the ring.... There were lengthy conversations in the last few days between them but a joint statement was never going to be a possibility".
Better to just keep quiet, no? She's not going to want to wear the ring, so while his understandable impulse to make a generous gesture is noted, there's no spoon large enough for the amount of sugar needed to jam this particular medicine down her throat. And the optics are quite bad, a man for whom money is readily available trying to "buy off" the woman he just publicly dumped. Who exactly is handling Rory's PR these days?
So, Rory reacts to the circumstances by winning the Euro Tour's flagship event. We can only hope that Caroline returns the favor....errr, no:
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| Ummm Caroline, was a Masters green skirt the best choice? |
If love is cruel, how about sport?
Just about anyone who saw Rory McIlroy win a prestigious golf tournament on Sunday, only days after breaking off his engagement with Caroline Wozniacki, had to be cheering for Wozniacki to make a strong statement of her own at the French Open.
But it was not to be in the gloom on Court 2 at Roland Garros on Tuesday.
Wozniacki’s agent John Tobias and others recommended that she not play at all. Despite her troubles, Wozniacki, the No. 13 seed from Denmark, showed up at the appointed time and place.
Given Caroline's recent performance, I was actually surprised that she was seeded. But it was not meant to be:
In light of the circumstances, she did rather well on Tuesday. As her father and coach, Piotr, watched quietly from the front row of the stands, she kept her composure, served for the first set and eventually won the second. But Yanina Wickmayer hit enough big shots and lines to prevail, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-2.
Good for her for playing and for fighting back in that second set. Perhaps the relationship was a distraction or perhaps she's not truly an elite player, but hopefully she stays healthy, puts the callow cad behind her (she is, after all, only 23) and we all se how good she can be.
Back to Rory, who had a decent start yesterday at the Memorial. As a note, after noting here that Rory is not a terrific fit for the next two majors, it occurred to me that place that is a good fit, especially if they get their usual wet weather, is Muirfield Village, where they just happen to be playing this week. And Rory throws up an opening round nine-under 63, with a double bogey. It was quite the colorful scorecard, with two two's and eight threes on it. Don't know about your experience, but I've found that two is rarely a bad score (I can't say never, because last year I made a two and lost the hole, but I'm not bitter).
Shackelford's got the goods in terms of what made this round special:
Wow, 6.3 strokes-gained putting in one round. That's something one doesn't see every day of the week. And of course it's difficult to do better than 16 of 16 putts inside 15 feet.
My understanding is that the weather should be good for the remainder of the week, so the course should return to the firm conditions we saw during the practice rounds. So, no predictions, but let's see how he handles those conditions and how dramatically his putting regresses to the mean.
In a tangentially related note, since starting this blog my handicap has exploded, from the seven I finished last season at to a current twelve (trending). Accordingly, I'm considering renaming the blog "Caroline Wozniacki," since the blog appears to have had the same effect on my game as Caroline did on Rory's.
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