McIlroy still uncomfortable with his Olympics dilemma
Never mind his ill-fated romance with Caroline Wozniacki — Rory McIlroy wants to be 100 percent comfortable before making a major commitment on the 2016 Olympic Games.
Or at least, while he believes he "should" feel 100 percent comfortable that may not be possible, even if he did half-hint that he might just play for Ireland in next year's World Cup of Golf in China.
Ireland, or Great Britain and Northern Ireland, that is the question. It's been the elephant in the room for several years now and Jumbo is not getting any smaller.
As yet, there's no news, though he did hint at Muirfield Village on Wednesday that he might just take a leaf out of Graeme McDowell's book and take the decision out of his own hands by playing for Ireland at Mission Hills.
If he does, bar some change in the IOC small print, he'd be obliged to play for Ireland in Rio on precedent.
Rory McIlroy speaks to the media in Ohio.
If he does make a definitive decision, it's likely he'll end up pleasing no-one. Not even himself.
So, is he any closer to making that decision?
"No, not really," he said. "I think we've had a few conversations with the R&A and IOC and talking about taking the decision out of my hands in some way. It's still ‑‑ it's not as far away as it was. It's a couple of years away. But I've still got a bit of time to sort of think about it.
"And I think 2016 is going to be a very busy golf season with that and the Olympics and everything else that's going to be going on. So, yeah, it's one of those things that I just gotta be 100 percent comfortable with whatever I decide and go with it."
Getting comfortable with his decision is not going to be easy, for obvious reasons.
"Of course I won't be a hundred percent comf‑ ‑‑ I mean, I should be. I mean, if you're going to the Olympics and representing a country, you would think you would want to be pretty sure that's the country you want to represent. But, yeah, it's a delicate subject. And what Graeme did last year with playing in the World Cup took the decision out of his hands. So maybe I'll do something similar, who knows."
As we discovered last week, McIlroy does not take these lifelong decisions lightly
