Why Rory McIlroy is not playing the Memorial Tournament this week as Masters champion misses Jack Nicklaus event ...Middle East

The Memorial Tournament is coming up this week, and all of golf’s best will be there, bar Rory McIlroy.

The newly-crowned Masters champion won’t be playing in Jack Nicklaus’ signature event at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

This tournament is one of the most prestigious non-major events.

As a result, only a select few players from around the world get to compete, with Scottie Scheffler, Colin Morikawa, Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele all invited.

However, McIlroy won’t be there.

Why is McIlroy missing Memorial?

McIlroy hasn’t spoken to the media since his pre-tournament press conference at the PGA Championship, so has not officially said why he’s not going to be at Memorial for the first time since 2017.

The Northern Irishman endured a disappointing tournament at Quail Hollow – a course he’s enjoyed incredible success on in the past.

He hasn’t played since then, but he is set to take part in the RBC Canadian Open.

This is the final PGA Tour event before the US Open, suggesting he’ll be using it as practice for that.

McIlroy has previously indicated that he finds the course for the Memorial Tournament to be particularly hard.

Fellow professional and podcast host Smylie Kaufman recalled recently how much McIlroy didn’t like the course.

Speaking on The Smylie Show, he said: “I don’t think that Rory loves to play Muirfield as much as maybe he used to. The place has just gotten ridiculously hard, man. Last year was an absolute joke.

“It was so, so hard. I remember walking out some fairways with Rory, just talking about the golf course with him and how frustrated he was just with certain shots that are just like, what are you going to do? There’s nowhere to miss it here.

“Typically, that form of complaints would be made by players way less talented than him. If a player like him is saying, man, this place is just ridiculous, that’s just a bit of a sign of maybe it’s a little bit too much now. I don’t think they quite have that golf course quite like it used to be.”

McIlroy has also indicated that now he’s completed the career Grand Slam, he’s hoping to play with more freedom.

This might mean he’s taking a more relaxed view on it.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “Getting the Masters, the career Grand Slam, the fifth major, getting all that out of the way. I think it will allow me to play with a lot more freedom.

“I really do think it’s going to free me up. It’s been a long time coming.”

Ultimately, we won’t get an actual reason for why McIlroy has decided to give this tournament a miss until he speaks to the media again.

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