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Rory McIlroy's comments on Muirfield 'disrespectful' to members voting in favor of admitting women

March 22, 2017
142nd Open Championship - Round Two

Stuart Franklin

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Rory McIlroy made news in the wake of Muirfield’s vote to finally admit women to join, for comments he made critical of the club. Martin Dempster of the Scotsman argues that he was out of bounds for having done so.

“While he will have been applauded loudly by some for those remarks, they are actually disrespectful to the 498 members who supported the proposal second time around, the majority having done so at the first time of asking, too, when it had come up just 14 votes short.

“McIlroy, of course, is entitled to his opinion, but, on this occasion, would it not have been better keeping some of those thoughts to himself? After all, it’s just created a storyline that the next staging of an Open Championship, which is likely to be in either 2022 or 2023, could really do without.”

Golf in a good place, even without Tiger

Golf with Tiger Woods was in its own class, but golf without Tiger is in a good place, Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press argues.

He notes that five eligible players opted out of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, but writes that it’s not an issue.

“The reason it's easy to overlook the absences is the Tiger factor.

“Because no one alone dominates the spotlight, the focus shifts toward who is playing instead of who's not. For the Match Play, that would be Dustin Johnson, the world's No. 1 player…[Jason] Day and Rory McIlroy, the last two winners of this event; and Jordan Spieth, who played college golf at Texas before dropping out to embark on the best start to a PGA Tour career since Woods.

“There are enough big names nearly every week. It's been that way for much of the year.

“Golf really is in a good place, even if it no longer has Woods, the most celebrated athlete in the world that it enjoyed for so many years.”