SOUTH CAROLINA (News Wires) — World No. 3 Rory McIlroy withdrew from this week’s RBC Heritage, the PGA Tour announced.
The tournament begins Thursday at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. No reason was specified for the 33-year-old Northern Ireland star’s withdrawal.
McIlroy missed the cut at last week’s Masters after carding a 5-over 77.
The RBC Heritage is a designated event, meaning players ranked in the top 20 of the Player Impact Programme are required to participate.
McIlroy bid for a career Grand Slam ended when he shot a disappointing second-round 77 after being a favourite to win his first Green Jacket at Augusta National heading into the major.
McIlroy will not be replaced by an alternate, with the field reduced to 143 players for the tournament, where Jordan Spieth is the defending champion.
The 33-year-old McIlroy, who captured the last of his four majors in 2014, had been hoping to win the Masters so that he could join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tiger Woods as the only players to achieve the career Grand Slam.
Tour rules state that players can miss one designated event but need an excused absence (like an injury) to skip any others or risk losing part of their PIP payout from the previous year.
McIlroy cut a shellshocked figure as his bid to win golf’s Grand Slam was ended for another year.
He has been in exceptional form for most of the past year, but was horribly out of sorts at the one major he is yet to win.
He is next due to play at the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina on May 4.
McIlroy finished second on the PIP list in 2022, which was worth $12 million. That money is paid to players in installments this year.
The first prize at the Heritage is $3.5 million which is actually $260,000 more than Jon Rahm picked up for his Masters success Sunday.
Rahm, himself, is teeing it up the Harbour Town course, alongside 20 other members of the world’s top 25.
McIlroy arrived in Georgia with so much confidence after finishing third at the WGC Match Play two weeks before and claiming that his second place in the 2022 Masters had resulted him in shrugging off the Augusta demons which have plagued him since his 2011 meltdown at the season’s first major.
