{"id":436338,"date":"2025-08-14T02:25:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T02:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=436338"},"modified":"2025-08-14T02:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T02:25:55","slug":"rory-mcilroy-reveals-why-he-didnt-go-to-st-jude-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/rory-mcilroy-reveals-why-he-didnt-go-to-st-jude-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy Reveals Why He Didn’t Go To St Jude Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the playoffs for the FedEx Cup officially began.\u00a0 The top seventy players of the season have been selected, and they are now off to the races.\u00a0 The first of four events was the St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee.\u00a0 Although it was supposed to have seventy players, there was a notable absence.\u00a0 Rory McIlroy, despite occupying the no. 2 spot in the FedEx rankings, was nowhere to be seen<\/a>.\u00a0 The decision has led to confusion and criticism.\u00a0 The main question was why he had done it, and now McIlroy has answered that question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recap On McIlroy And St Jude Fallout<\/span><\/h2>\n

Rory McIlroy\u2019s decision has brought him some criticism.\u00a0 Some were calling it disrespectful to the sport and players.\u00a0 People like Johnson Wagner were calling for rule changes<\/a> to keep such an absence from happening again.\u00a0 He proposed mandatory attendance with wiggle room for emergencies, given that the FedEx Cup has an elimination aspect to it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

McIlroy was able to skip the event without any kind of repercussion.\u00a0 Going into the playoffs, he was second in the FedEx Cup rankings, just behind Scottie Scheffler<\/a>.\u00a0 He was so far ahead of most other players that some people did the math and concluded that he could skip St Jude and the BMW Championship and still be in the race.\u00a0 After the St Jude Championship, McIlroy\u2019s FedEx Cup standing did not change.\u00a0 He remained in second but he will be attending the BMW Championship.<\/span><\/p>\n

McIlroy\u2019s Explanation<\/span><\/h2>\n

Ahead of the BMW Championship, Rory McIlroy attended a press conference<\/a> to answer some questions before the tournament.\u00a0 One of the questions was on his absence from the St Jude Championship, and McIlroy answered that he just needed an extra week off ahead of a very busy schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just think that extra week off will do me good with the events coming up. Some big events that are important to me\u2014the Irish Open, Wentworth (BMW PGA Championship), obviously the Ryder Cup. I want to try to win my seventh Race to Dubai over in Europe as well. There’s some things that are still important to me that I want to go play in. That was a big part of the reason why I wanted to take that extra week off last week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During this same conference, McIlroy addressed the need for a rule change after his absence.\u00a0 Mostly questioning if it was even necessary, but ultimately saying that he would support it if need be.\u00a0 McIlroy also pointed out that any rules change would need to keep a lot of people happy, including the media rights partner and the sponsors.\u00a0 Those two like to see big names on the field.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up Next: The BMW Championship<\/span><\/h2>\n

Rory McIlroy may have skipped the St Jude Championship, but he\u2019s not skipping the BMW Championship.\u00a0 Nor is he skipping the Ryder Cup, Irish Open, Wentworth, or the Race to Dubai.\u00a0 It was a calculated move, as suspected, but it is for much-needed rest right before McIlroy goes into several big tournaments.\u00a0 McIlroy has nine very busy weeks ahead of him, and he needs to save his strength before each one.\u00a0 For now, though, he is focusing on retaining his position during the BMW Championship this week.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Michael Madrid \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the playoffs for the FedEx Cup officially began.\u00a0 The top seventy players of the season have been selected, and they are now off to the races.\u00a0 The first of four events was the St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee.\u00a0 Although it was supposed to have seventy players, there was a notable absence.\u00a0 Rory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":436339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[8160,34,8170],"class_list":["post-436338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-bmw-championship","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-st-jude-championship"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436340,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436338\/revisions\/436340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}