Abu Dhabi: Rory McIlroy has said he cannot foresee a twitter ban for professional golfers, despite Ian Poulter posting a statement that read the rules of golf are ‘complete b*******' in reaction to Padraig Harrington's disqualification from the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Poulter posted a statement which read, "Rules of Golf Book Rule 22-4 paragraph three line seven. ‘the rules of golf are complete b******* and are stuck back in 1932.' Couldn't agree more."
The following message was then re-tweeted from a friend's account in agreement, "R&A needs to bring the rules into the 21st century. The Byzantine Empire has nothing on the Rules..."
They were knee-jerk reactions to Harrington's day one disqualification, while in second position, after a TV viewer rang in to say the Irishman had knocked his ball forward on the seventh hole.
Harrington had not seen what the TV audience had, and what should have been a two-point penalty became a disqualification when he signed his card as a three, not five.
McIlroy said of Poulter's post, "I saw it and I agree with Poulter, some rules are completely out of date and need updating."
"You can't have people rewinding something on TV and phoning in. It's not right. Some rules are very back in time the R&A [The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews — golf's governing body] are getting better at going with the times but…"
Right to opinion
The European Tour issued a statement to Gulf News in reaction to Poulter's post which refused to comment on the issue as the statement was a matter of opinion not fact. They said it did not involve the event or the Tour and so it was a matter for the R&A to address. But McIlroy said he can't foresee Poulter getting in trouble or twitter being banned by golfing heads anytime soon.
"Definitely not, everyone's got the right to their own opinion, there's such a thing as freedom of speech, you can say whatever you want — has he crossed the line? Not at all and will twitter be banned? No."
McIlroy, who himself got in trouble on twitter last year for calling former Blackburn Rovers footballer Robbie Savage ‘a T-word' added, "I think twitter is great it helps you interact with fans and it lets them see how you interact with the other players. ... I called him [Robbie Savage] a T-word because he was saying something to Poulter online that I didn't really like — obviously you don't want kids seeing that so I made my apologies I shouldn't have used that word.
"We all make mistakes. We're human after all, even if we are meant to be professional sports people. We may live in a gold fish bowl, but we are allowed to make same mistakes everyone else," McIlroy said.
Poulter's comments come just off the back of Liverpool winger Ryan Babel's fine for bringing the game (of football) into disrepute when he posted a picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt following their 1-0 FA Cup defeat.
If the Football Association has such poor sense of humour one can only imagine the cut-off point of golf's governing body.
