Rory McIlroy’s time off ‘exactly what he should be doing,’ says PGA Tour commissioner

BY JIMMY GOLEN

CROMWELL, Conn. (AP) – No hard feelings, Rory.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said he understands why Rory McIlroy withdrew from the Travelers Championship – the last signature event on the calendar – to recover from a meltdown late on Sunday at the US Open.

“Sometimes you just have to focus on what you need,” Monahan said Wednesday, a day before the tournament at TPC River Highlands just outside Hartford. “And that’s what he’s doing and that’s exactly what he should be doing because that’s what he thinks is the right path.”

McIlroy twice held a one-stroke lead over No. 2 Pinehurst before bogeying three of the last four holes and missing a pair of par putts from within four feet. Instead of McIlroy’s fifth major championship – and his first in a decade – Bryson DeChambeau claimed his second.

On Monday, McIlroy said on social media that he would take three weeks off to “build myself back up.” He plans to return July 10-13 for the Scottish Open, where he is the defending champion, followed by the British Open the following week at Royal Troon in Scotland.

Without him, there will be 71 players competing in the limited field, no-cut signature event at TPC River Highlands on Thursday. McIlroy is the only one in the top eight of the world rankings or the top 30 of the FedEx Cup standings who will miss out.

“Look at the quality of the field we have this week, we’re going to have a great Travelers Championship,” Monahan said. ‘And I’m looking forward to getting Rory back to Scotland.’

Hostile territory

The Travelers Championship is the only week of the year where Keegan Bradley has bragging rights over world number 1 Scottie Scheffler.

Not only is Bradley the defending TPC River Highlands champion, but the New England native can remind his Texas rival how the NBA Finals went down. Bradley’s Boston Celtics defeated Scheffler’s Dallas Mavericks in a Game 5 clincher on Monday night.

Asked about arriving in Celtics land so soon after Boston won its unprecedented 18th NBA championship, Scheffler joked, “Do I have to answer that question?” Scheffler said he didn’t hear any commotion on the court, but a fan asked him to autograph a Celtics hat.

He refused.

“I don’t blame him,” Bradley said. “I wouldn’t want that either if I was a Dallas fan.”

Bradley grew up in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts as an avid Boston sports fan and married the niece of baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk. At a news conference at Fenway Park last fall to introduce the local franchise to the new, high-tech TGL circuit, he described the thrill of seeing the Red Sox clubhouse and being given a tour by Englishman Tyrrell Hatton.

The Travelers presented Bradley with one of Fenway’s wooden chairs at the tournament’s media day in April.

“It’s one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever received – probably the coolest gift I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “It’s pretty spectacular to have a Fenway Park chair in your home.”

Paris example

The Travelers will feature 22 players of the 60 who qualified for the Paris Olympics, including all four Americans: Scheffler, defending gold medalist Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa.

Others include Ludvig Aberg (Sweden), Viktor Hovland (Norway), Hideki Matsuyama (Japan) and Britain’s Tommy Fleetwood and Matthew Fitzpatrick. Although they will be playing for their country, the Olympics is a 72-hole stroke play tournament, with medals awarded to those with the low scores.

“There is no team aspect to it. It would be cool if it was,” said Morikawa, who finished fourth in Tokyo and lost in a seven-man sudden-death playoff for the bronze medal on the fourth extra hole. “Caddies will definitely explore the course together, they will do all the preparation together, share a lot of information, just as if it were a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup in that sense. But when it comes down to it on Thursday, it’s our event, it’s our own individual event.”

That does not mean that there is no patriotism.

“I’m not necessarily going out and playing too many practice rounds with someone from another country,” said Scheffler, who will make his Olympic debut and admitted he hadn’t really thought about it. “We’re trying to go there and earn a medal for the U.S., so it’ll probably be a tighter circle when we go there.”

The rankings to determine the Olympic spots were completed with the conclusion of the US Open. Countries are limited to two players unless their third and fourth best players are ranked in the top 15 in the world.

Golf was one of the Olympic Games in the early last century before being dropped from the program for more than 100 years. It returned to Rio de Janeiro in 2016, making this its third go-round.

Scheffler said he is excited to be part of the Summer Games and explore other sports, including basketball and tennis. He also wanted to take a trip to the Olympic Village to watch the other athletes train.

“I grew up playing a lot of sports, so it would be pretty special to see the best in the world at their craft,” he said.