Rory McIlroy immediately announces break from golf after PGA Championship

"I'm going to take a couple weeks off, and then Memorial will be my next one," McIlroy explained after wrapping up his final round at Aronimink.

That means the 37-year-old will be back in action at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio, which gets underway on June 4.

It's a break of just over two weeks for the world number two before he returns to competition.

McIlroy had been sitting in a share of seventh heading into Sunday's final round, three shots off the pace set by overnight leader Alex Smalley.

It proved to be a frustrating day for the Masters champion as he chased what would have been his third PGA Championship title.

He carded a one-under 69 to finish the tournament at four under par, ultimately ending up five strokes adrift of champion Aaron Rai.

The 31-year-old Rai walked away with a maiden major victory and a rather handsome winner's cheque of $3.69m, which works out at roughly £2.75m.

McIlroy's consolation prize was $637,050, just over £475,000 for his week's work.

This isn't the first time McIlroy has given the Byron Nelson a miss – he sat out the event last year as well, saying he wanted to "recharge the batteries a little bit."

The four-time major winner has been quite open about wanting to pick and choose his tournaments more carefully, and he's clearly sticking to that plan.

As for Rai, the Englishman was clearly overwhelmed by his breakthrough triumph.

"It is very surreal," he said after lifting the Wanamaker Trophy. "It has been a frustrating season, so being stood here is outside of my wildest imagination."

Quite the turnaround for a player who'd struggled for form this year.