Why does Rory McIlroy play golf for Ireland at the Olympics?

Rory McIlroy is competing for Eire within the males’s Olympic golf match this week because the Northern Irishman makes an attempt to get again on monitor after a tough few weeks.

McIlroy completed an agonising second on the US Open after faltering on the ultimate holes as Bryson DeChambeau steamed via to take victory and deny McIlroy a primary main win for a decade. He slumped out of The Open at Royal Troon as one other yr glided by with out a main trophy.

However the Olympic Video games supply a uncommon likelihood for golfers to win one thing completely different. McIlroy performs alongside Eire’s Shane Lowry at Paris’s Le Golf Nationwide this week, whereas Matt Fitzpatrick and Tommy Fleetwood signify Staff GB.

McIlroy is from Holywood close to Belfast, and Olympians from Northern Eire are allowed to decide on whether or not they signify the Republic of Eire or Nice Britain and Northern Eire (the UK), given the nation’s divided historical past. “Staff GB” is a chunk of branding that controversially excludes Northern Eire, and there have been calls up to now to rebadge as “Staff UK”.

Forward of the competitors in Toyko three years in the past, he had the selection of representing both group however defined that he selected Eire just because “he has at all times” in worldwide golf. McIlroy has mentioned he “feels extra British” than Irish however at all times performed below the Irish flag when competing on a nationwide stage as a junior and felt no want to change allegiances for the Video games in Tokyo.

“I made it harder for myself than I wanted to,” McIlroy defined when asserting the choice. “My feeling in direction of it was extra ‘What is going to different folks assume?’ As soon as I obtained that out of my head and simply tried to do what was proper for me, then it turned simple. It was me wrestling with all of these issues.

“As I mentioned, beforehand, as soon as I left making an attempt to not upset anybody apart, then it was truly a fairly simple determination. The choice was I’m going to play golf for the nation or the nation that I’ve at all times performed for via my junior and newbie days and now into the skilled sport.

“Although the Olympics has given me this alternative, there actually wasn’t a alternative as a result of all I’ve accomplished all through my life is play golf for Eire so why would that change simply because the match has modified. That was my determination.”