Save for some innocuous promotions and congratulations, Rory McIlroy has been quiet on social media the last three weeks.
The busy life of a newlywed? Preparing for the Open Championship?
Well, maybe those, too. But mostly he can thank Steve Elkington.
It was after missing the cut at Erin Hills that McIlroy got into a heated exchange with Elkington, golf Twitter’s resident provocateur who said the four-time major champion looked “bored” playing golf. The conversation regressed from there. McIlroy shot back. Names were called. Others chimed in. At the time, McIlroy says now, he felt compelled to respond to a former Major champion who should know what high-pressure tournament golf can feel like. Eventually he came to realise it was a mistake.
“I must have wrote that tweet and deleted it about five times before I actually sent it,” McIlroy said at Portstewart Golf Club on the eve of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, according to the Irish Independent.
“I sort of regret sending it at the end but I actually gave my wife, Erica, my phone and my Twitter and told her, ‘Change my password to something else and don’t tell me what it is. So as of the time being, I’m off social media just because of that reason. I don’t need to read it. It’s stuff that shouldn’t get to you and sometimes it does.”
