{"id":31417,"date":"2026-07-04T04:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/31417\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T04:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:06:47","slug":"rory-mcilroy-withdraws-from-arnold-palmer-invitational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/31417\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy withdraws from Arnold Palmer Invitational"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Updated March 7, 2026, 2:16 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">ORLANDO, Fla. &#8212; Rory McIlroy withdrew from the 2026 Arnold Palmer Invitational on Saturday citing a bad back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">McIlroy warmed up on the range ahead of his 12:55 p.m. ET tee time alongside Ryan Fox, but pulled out about a half hour before he was supposed to tee off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cWhile warming up in the gym this morning, I felt a small twinge in my back. As I started hitting balls on the range before the round, it worsened and developed into muscle spasms in my lower back. Unfortunately, I\u2019m not able to continue and have to withdraw,&#8221; he said in a statement. &#8220;I was excited to compete this weekend. I wish the Arnold Palmer Invitational a great finish and look forward to being back next year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It marks just the second time in his career that McIlroy has withdrawn from a tournament. The other was at the 2013 Honda Classic when he was 7 over and claimed he had a toothache.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">McIlroy&#8217;s typical warmup routine is to putt first but he went straight to the range to hit a few balls after feeling pain in his lower back and determined that it wasn&#8217;t worth pushing it \u2014 although he told Golf Channel&#8217;s Todd Lewis he could have played but elected to give himself extra rest and allow for treatment to his back ahead of a busy stretch. As McIlroy stepped into a BMW, Golfweek asked him if he was OK and he gave a thumbs up and said, &#8220;All good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">McIlroy, 36, shot rounds of 72-68 and entered the third round T-9, trailing 36-hole leader Daniel Berger by nine strokes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">McIlroy, who won the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational, is the defending champion of next week&#8217;s Players Championship. Next month he will defend at the Masters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">McIlroy wasn&#8217;t the only competitor to withdraw from the third round citing a back injury. Austin Smotherman, who held the 54-hole lead at the Cognizant Classic last week before finishing T-2, withdrew after playing five holes on Saturday, about an hour earlier.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"gnt_em_cp_cw_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783138007_788_76310490007-87-778440322.jpeg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated March 7, 2026, 2:16 p.m. ET ORLANDO, Fla. &#8212; Rory McIlroy withdrew from the 2026 Arnold Palmer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[58,1348,59,1236,1237,990,65,68,1241,1242,5882,1103,80,193,1239,2213,67,1244,62],"class_list":["post-31417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arnold-palmer-invitational","tag-accessfree","tag-arnold-palmer-invitational","tag-sourcegolfweek","tag-sstssportsgolfpga","tag-sstsnpga-tour","tag-tagflorida","tag-taggolf","tag-taginternational-sports-competitions","tag-tagmasters-tournament-2025","tag-tagmasters-tournament-2026","tag-tagorlando","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagpga-tour","tag-tagrory-mcilroy","tag-tagryan-fox","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagthe-players-championship","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}