The insulting 2016 comments Rory McIlroy made he was told he would ‘regret’ more than any other moment in his career

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One of the problems Rory McIlroy faces as one of the players who is prepared to be so honest with the media at times, is the fact that he so often has to backtrack on what he has said further down the line.

Rory McIlroy is certainly not afraid to upset some with his comments at times. Perhaps the earliest example came in 2009 when he labelled the Ryder Cup an ‘exhibition‘ before he had made his debut in the event the following year. You will probably find no-one more critical of those comments now than the Northern Irishman himself.

And of course, no player probably felt more humiliated by the announcement of the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and the PIF than McIlroy after he had previously stated that he hated LIV Golf. The Showdown earlier this month highlighted how McIlroy’s stance has softened as he competed against Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.

But it seems that it was another moment from McIlroy’s career which Brandel Chamblee expected the four-time major champion to regret most.

The 2016 comments Rory McIlroy made about the Olympics he was told he would regret for the rest of his life

McIlroy was one of the big names to turn down the chance to play at the 2016 Olympic Games as golf made its return to the stage after more than a century away.

McIlroy cited concerns over the zika virus as a reason not to travel to Rio de Janeiro. And at The Open Championship, he would suggest that he would not even watch the golf event, hinting that it was not one of the sports which mattered in Rio.

“Honestly, I don’t think it was as difficult a decision for me as it was for him. I don’t feel like I’ve let the game down at all. I didn’t get into golf to try and grow the game. I got into golf to win championships and win major championships, and all of a sudden you get to this point and there is a responsibility on you to grow the game, and I get that. But at the same time that’s not the reason that I got into golf. I got into golf to win. I didn’t get into golf to get other people into the game,” he said.

“But, look, I get where different people come from and different people have different opinions. But I’m very happy with the decision that I’ve made and I have no regrets about it. I’ll probably watch the Olympics, but I’m not sure golf will be one of the events I watch.”

He was far from being the only star of the game to rule themselves out of the event. But speaking on Golf Channel, Chamblee seemed particularly disappointed with McIlroy’s decision to dismiss the golf as a worthwhile event altogether.

“I think he’ll regret those words for the rest of his life. I think it’s likely that at the end of his career, he’ll regret that moment more than any other moment in the history of his career. In effect, saying that golf doesn’t matter in the Olympics is an insult to everybody that goes and plays in the Olympics,” he said.

“It’s an insult to everybody that works tirelessly since 2009 to try and make golf better by its inclusion in the Olympics. Golf suffers from being too expensive, too exclusionary, too slow, hard to understand the rules, and from the criticism that for many, many years and continues on that golf is not really a sport.

“Rory had a chance to go there along with his peers, stand shoulder to shoulder with great athletes in the world and say golf is a sport, ‘look at me, I’m an athlete’, and not only did he choose not to do that – and initially when he chose not to do that, he cited the zika virus – but in effect today, he said ‘I’m not going, I’m not playing, I’m not watching because it doesn’t matter’. That is an insult to everybody that has spent time to further this game with its inclusion in the Olympics.”

What McIlroy said after the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris

While McIlroy may not be as strong as Chamblee in his criticism of himself, it would appear that he would concede that he was completely wrong. The 35-year-old has now taken part in Tokyo and France – coming extremely close to getting amongst the medals on both occasions.

Tokyo was still feeling the impact of the pandemic, but many of the athletes got much more of a feel of the Games earlier this year. And Le Golf National was a perfect stage for the event, having also hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup.

McIlroy himself would admit after his final round in France that the Olympics has the chance to put itself alongside the Ryder Cup.

“Amazing. We were talking about it out there and Nico reckons it’s the best tournament he’s ever been involved in, and he’s played a Ryder Cup,” he said, when asked about the experience.

“I still think that the Ryder Cup is the best tournament that we have in our game, pure competition, and I think this has the potential to be right up there with it.”

So, while McIlroy can sometimes make himself look a little silly with how honest his comments can be, he also deserves plenty of credit for always being willing to hold his hands up when he clearly got it wrong.