Rory McIlroy not helping himself by skipping post-round interviews

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There were questions coming into the week whether Rory McIlroy would arrive at the PGA Championship hungry for more after winning the Masters, or still in the afterglow of completing the career grand slam and uninspired.

Unfortunately, we don’t exactly know the answer, largely because the most popular player in the game has opted not to speak to media following any of his rounds this week.

After making the +1 cut right on the number at a Quail Hollow course he has won at four times on the PGA Tour, it seemed safe to assume that the Northern Irish superstar simply didn’t bring his usual competitive fire to Charlotte. But then, on Friday, news broke that McIlroy’s TaylorMade driver was randomly tested by the USGA and deemed non-conforming on Tuesday, forcing him to use a replacement this week.

Looking at his statistics for the week, it’s been largely his driver that has let him down. Usually his greatest weapon — and the most important club this week at a brutally long and soft golf course — McIlroy has missed more than half the fairways, and the No. 1 player in strokes-gained-off-the-tee isn’t gaining any notable advantage driving the ball this week. It would be interesting and worthwhile to know how much he feels the driver switch has affected his week.

McIlroy heads to Sunday tied for 49th at two-over par.

Talking about it would also help clarify to mainstream sports fans that having a driver pulled for testing non-conforming is nothing like cheating. The fact is that modern drivers are built so close to the legal limitations that after hitting thousands of balls, the club can infinitesimally change, but change enough to fail the test.

Unfortunately it’s mainly golf geeks that know this, so there are sports fans tuning into this major championship wondering if Rory was up to no good this week, or even worse, in April at the Masters.

He wasn’t. And that’s for certain. But he could have — and should have — helped himself by taking 30 seconds to address the topic this week.