Rory McIlroy has double nightmare US Open situation as first pairings introduced

Golf’s evolving cleaning soap opera rolls into Los Angeles this week for the US Open and it appears to be like just like the Hollywood scriptwriters have already had a hand in setting out the early scenes for what might be 4 days of excessive drama on the Californian coast.

With the mud having barely settled on the bombshell news that fighters the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are set to let bygones be bygones and be part of forces, two of the sport’s largest names from reverse ends of the bitter feud have been paired collectively within the first spherical.

In the PGA nook is the tour’s largest advocate and golden boy Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman not too long ago admitted to feeling like a ‘sacrificial lamb’ within the tour’s battle for supremacy with LIV Golf, just for its dealmakers to shake fingers with their Saudi-funded adversaries with out letting their star participant learn about it first.

So who else would he somewhat tee off inside LA on Thursday than LIV Golf’s man-of-the-moment Brooks Koepka? The alpha male 33-year-old was runner-up at The Masters earlier than dominating on the USA PGA Championship to choose up the fifth Major of his spectacular profession up to now. All was achieved whereas netting tens of millions due to his involvement with LIV Golf whereas McIlroy maintained his ethical excessive floor. Soon they are going to be tour colleagues once more no matter their completely different paths.

Any awkwardness round McIlroy’s pairing with Koepka will exist solely across the two contrasting excursions that they passionately characterize, nevertheless.

The pair have a superb relationship off the course and performed a apply spherical collectively in Augusta.

But there might be no escaping the truth that golf’s breakaway tour energy by Middle Eastern cash has now negotiated itself a seat on the sport’s prime desk and McIlory might be left with no choice however to area uncomfortable questions concerning the growth after committing a lot of his effort and time to opposing its very existence.

Another concern for the World No 3 comes within the form of getting to play towards Koepka in precept. The pair’s Augusta apply spherical could have given McIlroy a sign of simply what crimson scorching type his American counterpart has rediscovered this 12 months and it was not a shock to see the Florida-born star make the ultimate pairings of each of this 12 months’s majors to this point.

McIlroy has missed three cuts this season after ending second on the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 1.

But two consecutive seventh-placed finishes on the PGA Championship and the Memorial Tournament two weeks later counsel he is able to try to clinch a second profession US Open title and a primary Major triumph for 9 years, as long as he can put the distraction of LIV to the again of his thoughts.