Weekend Wrap - Blame It On Canada Edition

No fun being the week before a biggie, but was that a weird week or what?  Even without Rory's cameo performance....

The Pillow Fight Playoff - I know it was one of the anointed eight, but it was every bit it was in all ways bad enough to be a Signature Event Money Grab™.  But whoever wrote this lede did so without watching the underlying event:

he RBC Canadian Open has a knack for delivering dramatic moments.

Three years ago, Rory McIlroy defended his title by defeating Tony Finau and Justin Thomas. At the onset of the LIV Golf-PGA Tour war, McIlroy celebrated his win with a jab at then-LIV Golf CEO

and commissioner Greg Norman. In 2023, Canadian Nick Taylor drained a 72-foot eagle putt to defeat Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff. Last year, Robert MacIntyre won with his father on his bag as a fill-in caddie.

The 2025 edition won’t be remembered in the same light as those mentioned above but there was plenty of drama on Sunday in Caldeon, Ontario.

Sam Burns went out Sunday at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley and fired a final-round eight-under 62 to take the clubhouse lead. Burns waited for two hours as 54-hole co-leaders, Matteo Manassero and Ryan Fox, and other would-be contenders made their way around the course.

Yes, draping this years event with the glories of year's past is a tried and true strategy, but does the garment fit?  Well, I didn't come up with the pillow fight bit:

“Pillow fight” playoff with a Fox

Finally, all that was left was Fox, the 38-year-old New Zealander who just won his first PGA Tour event last month with a chip-in during a playoff at the Myrtle Beach Classic.

After birdies at 14 and 15, Fox sat just one shot back of Burns with three holes to play, including the par-5 18th. Fox missed a 24-foot putt for birdie on 16 and then missed an eight-footer for birdie on 17.

Burns just stood on the range, sending balls into the Toronto sky, hoping he could dodge one last contender.

Fox hit the 18th fairway, laid up with his second, and stuck his third to 17 feet. The New Zealander gave his birdie putt a confident stroke, but it looked like he left it out to the left. As it approached the hole, the ball crept back toward the cup and barely slid in the side door to send the 2025 RBC Canadian Open to a playoff.

From there, the drama stalled.

It wasn't just "from there".... it was pretty moribund all week.  Seemed like they went out of their way to find a dreadful venue, but at least they buried this event the week before Oakmont instead of jack's event (which they abused last year).

We'll not dwell on the bad week, except to wonder at this event's viability once Canada becomes the 51st state.  Oh well, we'll leave that for another day.

Wither Rory -  As you might have discerned, I'm not exactly over the moon about the Ulsterman, ironically disaffected with him just as he find professional redemption with that Masters win.  Which should make a man happy, yanno, that monkey off the back that we're told is a thing.

Also a thing is Rory's carefully planned U.S. Open prep, which had him skipping Jack's event (without dropping the expected dime) to play the week before.  Correction, to play 36 holes the week before, though I'll grudgingly concede that he got four days of swings into those two rounds.  Not sure I'll order these in the most logical fashion, but let's drop in with this from the Tour Confidential panel:

After opening his season with a top-20 finish in all eight starts — including three wins — Rory McIlroy tied for 47th at the PGA and enters this week coming off a 71-78 missed cut at the RBC Canadian Open. A troubling trend? Or a couple of outliers? How does Rory’s game translate to Oakmont?

Sens: When Rory’s on, his game translates to any course. But recent signs have been troubling. The erratic drives he’s been hitting of late will not work at Oakmont. Compound that with some comments McIlroy has made about his post-Augusta motivation levels, and I would not pick him high in an office pool.

Dethier: McIlroy’s trip to Canada was strange from start to finish. I was most struck by one thing he said in his pre-tournament press conference: “You have this event in your life that you’ve worked towards and it happens, sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.” It’s pretty clear he’s experiencing some sort of post-Masters letdown. When will he snap out of it? Professional golf is the ultimate grind and the U.S. Open is triply so; I’m sure he’s still eager to contend and to win but if he’s even a little bit elsewhere, that’s enough to throw off everything. We’ll get a good sense of McIlroy’s game this week – his swing, his mind, his grind.

Melton: The comedown after the high of completing the career Grand Slam seems to have caught up with him — and can you blame him? A burden over a decade in the making was finally lifted. I can see how coming down from that rush would make for a rocky re-acclimitization. With Rory’s talent, he’s a threat to win just about every week, but the way his game has been trending, I’d put my money on someone else next week.

Obviously they're focused on Rory's play, which to me is the least significant subject in play.  Of course I expect a letdown, especially from a high-beta player like Rory.  I laughed at those that liked his chances at Quail Hollow, even without the complication factor of the failed driver test.

Let's stay with the TC gang, though we'll need to circle back below:

While in Canada, McIlroy spoke to the media for the first time since his pre-tournament press conference at the PGA, explained why he didn’t meet with reporters after his rounds at Quail Hollow (“a bit of a weird week”) and added some context to the failed driver test storyline (he was irked Scheffler’s also failed but it was Rory’s name that leaked). What were your thoughts on Rory’s comments and how he unpacked the situation?

Sens: He was typically thoughtful, especially when talking about his frustration at being singled and not wanting to throw Scheffler’s name into the conversation. All of that made sense. But otherwise, his rationale for not speaking with reporters didn’t sit well. Sure, technically, he was not required to stop by the podium. But it’s still poor form to blow off the press. It takes just a few minutes to field a few questions– a tiny price to pay for the obscene money he makes.

Dethier: McIlroy should have talked to the media at the PGA, not because he “owes it to us” or whatever but just as a tactical decision, to take some air out of the balloon. With that said, if you’re using this driver storyline as some sort of mark against McIlroy it’s because you already didn’t like him or are intentionally misunderstanding the situation. There are plenty of people in both those camps, so this will continue to float around in social media comment sections across platforms — but he unpacked the situation thoughtfully and, other than revisiting driver testing protocols, I think we should all move on.

Melton: Rory could have controlled the narrative if he’d given just a few minutes of his time to the press at Quail Hollow. Instead, this is still a storyline a month later. I can understand his frustration about the info leaking to the press, but he only threw fuel on the fire by ghosting the media.

Thoughtful?  I'll concede that his comments included thoughts, but more of the doubling down on stupid ilk, than the scratch my chin interesting type.  Dylan Dethier's comments are also worth our focus, perhaps you'll remind me to circle back to them below.

To your humble blogger, how he plays is the least interesting aspect of the current moment, though others disagree:

Rory McIlroy faces 2 U.S. Open questions after missed Canadian Open cut

 Only two?

I'd add the question of whether stories like this actually help his sponsor:

Back in March, McIlroy played the first three rounds of the Arnold Palmer Invitational with

TaylorMade’s latest driver and woods before paying $995 for an Uber to bring his old gamers to Orlando for the final round.

After his second try with TaylorMade’s newest driver flopped, McIlroy will spend the next handful of days trying to find the right weapon off the tee heading to Oakmont. Until he has that driver in hand, the 36-year-old Northern Irishman’s game will be a big question mark heading into the brutal examination known as the U.S. Open.

So, As I understand the state of play, Rory is telling the golfers of the world that TaylorMade's current driver offering.... well, doesn't work.   Awkward, no?

Here's the rousing coda to that piece:

McIlroy took two weeks off in between the PGA Championship and the RBC Canadian Open. He said he used that time to “reset” his goals for the season and determine where he’s “at in his own head” and how he wants to attack the rest of the season.

The hope was that four days in Canada would spark him toward a strong finish to the 2025 season.

Instead, driver troubles derailed his tournament early, and now he will enter what promises to be a brutal challenge at Oakmont facing two questions: Can Rory McIlroy find the right driver and fix his driving woes in a few days? And what should we expect from him during the back half of a season that is forever etched in golf history?

How he answers them — or if he does — will determine whether or not this year has any more magic in store for McIlroy.

I'd add a third, far more intriguing question.  To wit, why when he should be at his most contented, has he turned into such an asshat?

Because that which has been coming out of his mouth makes his decision to stiff the media look brilliant.  Of course, that's a complimentary take on his decision, the cause of which is Rory being such a petulant crybaby when he does talk.   Let's get into those "typically thoughtful" comments:

Rory McIlroy’s driver, media comments offer window into his mind

Talk about your black holes.....  So, what might these comments be?

The great irony of Rory McIlroy skipping media after each of his four rounds at the PGA Championship was that, as a result of his silence, we didn’t know why he wasn’t talking.

Was it because of his substandard play? Because of news around a failed driver test? Because somebody had leaked said test? Because he was unhappy with the media? Just because he could?

On Wednesday, McIlroy reemerged ahead of the RBC Canadian Open and offered a particularly succinct explanation that made all the speculation seem sort of silly.

“It was just — some days you don’t feel like talking,” McIlroy said.

Fair enough.

Sometimes you feel like a mint.....  Gaslight much, Rors?

And really it was just circumstantial:

“Yeah, look, the PGA was a bit of a weird week,” he said. “I didn’t play well the first day, so I wanted to go practice, so that was fine.

“Second day we finished late; I wanted to go back and see Poppy before she went to bed, the driver news broke. I didn’t really want to speak on that.

“Saturday I was supposed to tee off at 8:20 in the morning. I didn’t tee off until almost 2:00 in the afternoon, another late finish, was just tired, wanted to go home.

“Then Sunday, I just wanted to get on the plane and go back to Florida.”

In other words, some of it was circumstantial. Shifting tee times, range sessions, bedtime.

So, absolutely nothing to se here?  Oh yeah, totally credible....Wasn't ducking anything at all....No siree!

But McIlroy admitted there was more to the story, too, particularly surrounding his driver, which was reportedly one of eight to fail but the only one to be made public:

“Look, and also the driver stuff — I was a little pissed off because I knew that Scottie’s driver had failed on Monday, but my name was the one that was leaked. It was supposed to stay confidential. Two members of the media were the ones that leaked it.”

It wasn’t clear here whether he was upset with those who leaked his failed result to the media or with the media members who then reported it; either way it’s understandable that he would be upset about being singled out. After all, had Scheffler’s name emerged alongside his, the narrative would have been completely different.

“Again, I didn’t want to get up there and say something that I regretted, either, because there’s a lot of people that — I’m trying to protect Scottie. I don’t want to mention his name. I’m trying to protect TaylorMade. I’m trying to protect the USGA, PGA of America, myself. I just didn’t want to get up there and say something that I regretted at the time.”

Oh, so maybe it wasn't just scheduling? 

But the two-faced reaction to the driver test is getting way old, especially given how aggressively they push the limits.  Weeks later and he's still butthurt, which is just bizarre.   But, sure, it was just all about protecting Scottie, which is just as credible as it being about Poppy's bedtime.

More substantively, having been caught out on the driver, everyone seems to be going to pains to avoid that certain 600 lb. elephant over there in the corner, to wit, that he likely won his career slam with a non-performing driver.  Where is Rory's call to test every driver at every event?  He'd seemingly rather mewl over the leak of his failed test than use it to make a positive change to the protocols.  

While I have no patience for his caterwauling over the driver test, here's where he really breaks faith with golf fans:

As for the bigger-picture question of athletes and their responsibility to take questions post-round? He didn’t quite repeat Collin Morikawa’s refrain of “I don’t owe anyone”, but he echoed a similar point.

“From a responsibility standpoint, look, I understand, but if we all wanted to, we could all bypass you guys and we could just go on this and we could go on social media and we could talk about our round and do it our own way,” McIlroy said, holding up his phone.

It’s an interesting concept, guys conducting their own post-round interviews, and a reminder of how dynamics have shifted since the advent of social media; pros with big-time platforms don’t necessarily need the media to reach an audience. From a player’s perspective, plenty of interviews are boring or, worse, intrusive. McIlroy’s subtext — we don’t need you — has some truth to it, even if it’s not all the way true.

McIlroy ended on a conciliatory note, pointing out that he spends plenty of time talking to the media and that he hopes it’s a “two-way street”. That seemed to be an acknowledgement that players and media need each other. But as long as tournaments don’t mandate that pros answer questions, he said, he’ll follow his instincts.

“I’ve been beating this drum for a long time. If they want to make it mandatory, that’s fine, but in our rules it says that it’s not, and until the day that that’s maybe written into the regulations, you’re going to have guys skip from time to time, and that’s well within our rights,” he concluded.

Message received.  Rory has clearly told us that he owes us nothing and that, absent a rule requiring him to do so, he'll do as he pleases.  Noted, Rory, but you'll understand that, if you're only speaking to us when it suits you, that we'll only watch when it suits us.  And it's not suiting me very often these days....

But scroll back to that Dylan Dethier answer above, in which he made a perfectly reasonable case that Rory missed a strategic opportunity to control the narrative.  Dylan may be correct, though I'm more of a first principles kind of guy.  Dylan think Rory should talk to the fans (he's not actually talking to the media, they're just a conduit) because it's in Rory's best interests to do so.  By way of contrast, I think Rory should make himself available for the simple reason that it's the right thing to do for the game and the Tour.  

But Rory has told us quite clearly that the good of the game isn't sufficient motivation.  We noticed and will react appropriately, though Rory himself doesn't seem to understand the implications of that, does he?

Oakmont On My Mind - Well, it is on my mind, but unfortunately events intruded.  Given that it's now almost 11:00 a.m., I'm going to publish this and hopefully pick up on Oakmont blogging in the next few days.  Have a great week.