Former England football Gary Lineker has provoked Irish golf fans by claiming Rory McIlroy is British.
The Match of the Day host made the claim while responding to the news that McIlroy had missed the cut at Royal Portrush for the Open. A poor opening showing proved decisive as the 30-year-old fell one short of the weekend's action.
Fabulous effort today from @McIlroyRory. Showed the character of the champion he is. So much rubbish written about lack of bottle. You don’t win 4 majors and the Player’s without heart and nerve. We should be proud of our great sportspeople not bash them at every opportunity.
— Gary Lineker 💙💛 (@GaryLineker) July 19, 2019
It’s the British Open and @McIlroyRory is British. 👍🏻 https://t.co/Aayn365BKf
— Gary Lineker 💙💛 (@GaryLineker) July 19, 2019
When met with a wave of criticism, Lineker opted for the stock shock jock ploy and claimed he was merely 'teasing' and it was a tweet designed to provoke.
My tweet was in jest. A little wind up that was actually far too successful for my liking. I’ll pipe down. 🤪
— Gary Lineker 💙💛 (@GaryLineker) July 19, 2019
McIlroy has faced questions over his identity repeatedly during his career and will represent Ireland at the Olympic Games Tokyo in 2020.
Speaking about that decision earlier this week, he said, "I needed to do a lot of inner thought and sort of, 'is this important to me? Why do I want to play it? Who do I want to represent?' All that sort of stuff."
At the start, whenever I was thinking of playing the Olympics, I let other people's opinions weigh on that decision. I can't please everyone.
The only people that really care about who I play for, who I represent, don't mean anything to me. I don't care about them. So at the end of the day, I think with where golf is, with it being part of the Olympic movement, if I had to look back on my career and not played in one I probably would have regretted it.
