Handling Rory: “There’s absolutely no point in him taking out his PGA Tour card"

Brian Keogh looks at the handling of Rory McIlroy by agent Chubby Chandler and it's a distinctly un-American way of handling a career, reason #451 that Americans are falling behind the rest of the world.

Determined to treat his new talent with kid gloves, the Englishman has decided that there will be no sponsorship overkill just yet and no move to the PGA Tour either as they eye the golf explosion in Asia and the global attraction of a world schedule that combines the best of the European Tour’s Race to Dubai with the majors and World Golf Championships.

“There’s absolutely no point in him taking out his PGA Tour card,” Chandler said before the start of yesterday’s third round. “Suddenly he has got to play 15 tournaments. Suddenly they start dictating to you.

“Rory’s going to be young for a while yet and he’s going to want to go home and have a bit of time out with his pals. The money’s not an issue. I said to him last night. ‘For me with you there’s a totally different set of rules than there is with anybody else because we’ve got time.’

“I’ve got a couple of deals in the pipeline but we’ve just sort of said ‘yeah we’re interested but we’re all right’ because he doesn’t need more company days, he doesn’t need more commitments, he just wants to play golf.”