Rory McIlroy goes easy on Talor Gooch then daggers him with final line

Rory McIlroy hits back at Talor Gooch following his Masters comments.

28 Feb 2024

Rory McIlroy goes easy on Talor Gooch then daggers him with final line

Rory McIlroy went fairly easy on LIV Golf's Talor Gooch when responding to his controversial Masters asterisk comment. That was at least until he got to his final line in front of the media at this week's Cognizant Classic on the PGA Tour.

Gooch, 32, told Australian Golf Digest on Tuesday that should McIlroy complete the career grand slam this April, then the major will need an asterisk next to it as a result of multiple LIV Golf players not being eligible to compete at Augusta National.

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He told the publication:

"If Rory McIlroy goes and completes his [career] grand slam without some of the best players in the world, there's just going to be an asterisk. It's just the reality. I think everybody wins whenever the majors figure out a way to get the best players in the world there."

Gooch found himself inside the top 40 before he left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf in 2022.

He won three times on LIV Golf last season and also won the individual season-long championship.

But with LIV remaining shut out of receiving valuable Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points, Gooch - who finished T34 at last year's Masters and then missed the cut at both the US PGA and The Open - now finds himself 449th in the world.

That means he is ineligible to compete in the season's first major at The Masters, as well as the other three majors in 2024.

Augusta National last week handed out special invites into The Masters for LIV Golf's Joaquin Niemann, and PGA Tour players Thorbjorn Olesen and Ryo Hisatsune who both earned their cards through the DP World Tour last season.

These were special invites for international players, something Augusta typically does before the start of The Masters each year.

Rory McIlroy hits back at Talor Gooch after asterisk comment

Niemann was given his exemption as a result of his Australian Open triumph at the end of 2023, but his LIV Golf Mayakoba victory from earlier this month was not even mentioned by those at Augusta National.

All past Masters champions currently on LIV Golf remain in The Masters field.

McIlroy believes it was more than fair to hand Niemann a special exemption into The Masters because he has made the effort to come and play on the DP World Tour and try pick up valuable OWGR points to play his way into the majors this season.

On top of winning the Australian Open at the end of 2023, Niemann also finished T4 at the Australian PGA a week before that.

The Chilean also finished T4 at the Dubai Desert Classic last month, and he also came third at the International Series Oman on the Asian Tour last week.

As a result of those performances, Niemann has at least kept himself on the map at 72nd in the OWGR.

The same level of effort cannot be said for Gooch in the eyes of McIlroy, who spoke to reporters ahead of this week's Cognizant Classic at The Palm Beaches on Wednesday.

McIlroy did go easy on Gooch to begin with in his response as he considered the question posed to the American did lead him down a path so to speak.

But the Ulsterman was not prepared in the slightest to admit Gooch deserved a place in the field at The Masters this April.

McIlroy said:

"The Masters is an invitational and they will invite whoever they think warrants an invite. I think to be fair to Talor if you read the question and then the answer, it's not as if he came out with that, I feel whoever did that interview sort of led him down that path to say that, so I'm giving him the benefit of doubt there a little bit, he basically just agreed with what the interviewer asked, but at the same time, Joaquin Niemann got an invite and I played with Joaquin in Dubai a few weeks ago and he went down to Australia and won, he was in Oman last week, he has been chasing his tail around the world to either play his way into Augusta or show enough form to warrant an invite, and I don't know if the same can be said for Talor."

WATCH MCILROY'S INTERVIEW BELOW

Rory McIlroy responds to Talor Gooch's 'asterisk' comment about The Masters. pic.twitter.com/CFKHsNJuVJ
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) February 28, 2024

McIlroy starts a warm 8/1 tournament favourite at this week's Cognizant Classic at The Palm Beaches.

The tournament was formerly the Honda Classic, which McIlroy won in 2012.

Gooch is competing in the third LIV Golf event of the season at LIV Golf Jeddah, where he lost out in a playoff to Brooks Koepka last season. Koepka is bidding to win the tournament for a third time in a row, something he has never done before in his career.

What do you make of Talor Gooch's comments about Rory McIlroy and The Masters? What do you make of McIlroy's response? Share your thoughts and comments over on the GolfMagic social media channels.

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