JOHNS CREEK, Ga. – With his right wrist and forearm heavily bandaged, Rory McIlroy marched past his agent Chubby Chandler on his way to the first tee before Friday’s second round of the PGA Championship.
“It’s going to be a cut shot day,” McIlroy told Chandler while sweeping his hand in the motion required to hit a cut.
Chandler said McIlroy went to the Peachtree Dunwoody Medical Center after leaving Atlanta Athletic Club following Thursday’s round, where an orthopedic hand specialist examined McIlroy’s injury.
McIlroy was diagnosed with strained tendons in the forearm just above the wrist.
“There’s no structural damage, just inflammation,” Chandler said. “He can’t do damage just by playing, but he’s going to have a lot of pain.”
McIlroy spent about three hours at the medical center, where the hand specialist said they could administer a Toradol injection, an anti-inflammatory drug, but McIlroy passed on the injection.
“They couldn’t get the sign off, it was 10 [o’clock], and he didn’t want to be there all night,” Chandler said.
McIlroy slept in a soft cast Thursday night but the only medication he took was two Alleve before bed and two more in the morning.
Chandler said doctors advised McIlroy that he would be OK to hit normal shots and couldn’t injure himself more unless he tried to hit another shot from a questionable lie. The American hand specialist sent scans to a specialist in Great Britain.
Chandler said the decision to play was ultimately McIlroy’s.
“I left it alone, I left it to the medical guys,” Chandler said.
Besides, Chandler said, “Rory doesn’t listen to anybody anyway.”