Rory McIlroy has been warned that he can no longer keep avoiding FedEx Cup’s playoff for much longer after he has chosen not to play in one of the three legs.
The Masters champion is the only one of the 70 players in the field who has chosen to sit out the £15million event at TPC Southwind this week.
The Northern Irish native has already secured three wins this year and is in second place in the standings, behind Scottie Scheffler in the rankings, meaning he has no sporting reason to play in the tournament besides winning.
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Peter Malnati, a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board, revealed that he was “very” concerned about the golfing star’s behaviour.
Tour officials are not happy with the Briton's behaviour
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Malnati was asked if players could be punished in the future for missing play-off events, and he replied: “I think there is stuff in the works and I’ll leave it at that.”
While Malnati appeared to be aiming some sort of threat the way of McIlroy, a fellow player director, Webb Simpson, had no issue with the behaviour of the Briton.
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“I knew I couldn’t fall more than one spot and I thought losing one stroke at East Lake was worth a week of rest because I was toast. I don’t know Rory’s reason but I totally get it. It’s a hard to thing to fix,” he concluded.
Scottie Scheffler took home the FedEx Cup last year
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The 36-year-old is not the first person to skip play-off events. Tiger Woods chose to sit out in both 2007 and 2019, with fatigue and an oblique strain being the cause of his issues.
After the 2007 withdrawal, Woods went on to win the final two playoff events and claim the first FedEx Cup.
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McIlroy made the decision to miss the tournament over nine months ago, so the decision has not come as a surprise to tour chiefs.
Back in November, McIlroy told the media: “I finished, basically, dead last there (last) year, and only moved down one spot in the playoff standings."
The Briton has won three events so far this year
|PA
Penalties may be enforced should more follow in the footsteps of the Masters’ winner, but former tour player policy director Jordan Spieth thinks absences will remain uncommon.
“You might have one or two guys do that for an event but I don’t think it will become a thing because they are still huge events against the best players in the world,” Spieth said. “I think they’re trying to figure out how to make sure you don’t skip both of them and ideally neither of them.”