Rory McIlroy has withdrawn from The RBC Heritage at Hilton Head in South Carolina, a PGA Tour event taking place this week.
The PGA Tour announced the third-ranked player’s withdrawal without providing a reason. The 33-year-old Northern Irishman, who was making his seventh try to complete the career Grand Slam at Augusta National, fired rounds of 72 and 77 to miss the cut at the Masters last week by two strokes.
One of the PGA Tour’s designated tournaments is the RBC Heritage. Only one designated tournament may be skipped every season by players who are in the top 20 of the Player Impact Program (PIP), which was developed to reward players for increasing engagement and exposure on the PGA Tour.
McIlroy has also skipped the Sentry Tournament of Champions, which opened the season, in January. This second absence would lose him PIP bonus money, which is awarded after the PGA Tour season and won McIlroy a £7.5 million prize in 2022.
Former world number one Jason Day, who was in the mix at Augusta, has also withdrawn from this week’s competition. Even though McIlroy only won one of his four majors in 2014, winning the Masters would have made him just the sixth contestant to win the men’s career Grand Slam.
He entered the competition having won four times on the PGA Tour in the previous ten months, and golf fans believed 2018 would be the year he finally attained golfing fame.
After missing the halfway cut, McIlroy declined to participate in any post-round interviews.
