Rory McIlroy was forced to cut short his practice round ahead of the PGA Championship due to a blister on his right foot, sparking concerns about his fitness for the major tournament at Aronimink.
The 37-year-old Northern Irishman, who completed the career grand slam in 2025 and secured consecutive green jackets in 2026, faces World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and other elite players. However, his preparation has been hampered by a troublesome blister that caused him to stop his practice round on Tuesday, remove his shoe, and examine his foot.
This follows McIlroy limping at the Truist Championship because of a blister on his pinky toe. He said at that tournament: "Yeah, I've got a blister on my pinky toe on my right foot. But it's underneath my nail. So I can't really get to it, so it's a little sore, but I'll be all right. Started to feel it like Friday afternoon."
McIlroy insisted the blister is not an excuse for subpar performances after a five-under showing at the Truist Championship. He laughed: "No, not at all. I wish that was an excuse, but absolutely not. No, it's fine. I'll be okay."
The Holywood-born star also revealed he will address several issues before the second major of the campaign. "I think the range session last night was good. Figured out a couple of things. As I said, I feel like I got into a couple of bad habits just because of that left-to-right wind on the range all week. So straighten that out," McIlroy said.
He added: "I'm going to go home tonight, which will be nice, spend a night in my own bed and practice at home tomorrow. Try to get a, you know, just sort of continue that feel and bring that up to Philadelphia for the rest of the week."
McIlroy had already visited Aronimink recently and jokingly claimed he 'lived' there following criticism over his Masters preparation. "I lived there for a week," he said, laughing. "Just played it every day. No, I went up and back in the same day. It was good to get -- we played the BMW there in 2018, but the course played a lot differently. It was wet in 2018 and the greens didn't play as fast or as severe as what I felt like they played last week when I played. So it's not a long golf course, but the big defence is the greens and they can tuck the pins away if they want to."
He concluded: "But yeah it was nice to get an early look at it. It just means that the week of the tournament you're not under pressure to play a lot of holes and historically the practice rounds at the PGA can be excruciatingly long, so it's probably going to just be nine holes Tuesday, nine holes Wednesday."
