A disgruntled Rory McIlroy departed the Alfred Dunhill Links on Sunday, but not before taking a dig at the European Tour, describing their course setups as being “too easy”.

An intriguing take from the second-best player in the world who had just finished T26 at the Scottish event.

Indeed, it isn’t the only performance in recent times either where McIlroy has been outdone by his peers on the European Tour—having failed to record a win in Europe since 2016.

Following his worst finish at a tournament since The Open, the Ulsterman loosened his tongue, and railed against the course setups on the European Tour, stating

“I’m honestly sick of coming back over to the European Tour and shooting 15-under par and finishing 30th. I don’t think the courses are set up hard enough. There’s no penalties for bad shots. It’s tough when you come back when it’s like that. I don’t feel like good golf is regarded as well as it could be.”

Strong rhetoric from the 30-year-old Holywood native who clearly feels the European Tour is failing to match the PGA Tour in their ability to create challenging course setups.

Less than 24 hours after making the comments, McIlroy took to Instagram to acknowledge he had been wrong to make the remarks 15 minutes after his final round on Sunday. However, the 30-year-old maintained that he would like to see tougher setups on the European Tour.

“I would personally like to see tougher set ups in Europe because it will produce better, more complete young players in the future and that can only be a good thing for our game and our Ryder Cup chances going forward.”

As McIlroy explained in the post, last week’s event was a Pro-Am played across links courses in benign conditions which will always lead to low scores – similar to what you’d see at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA Tour.

Taking the Ulsterman’s criticism at face value, then the reason behind his disappointing T26 finish last week boiled down to one thing—not playing well enough. If these courses are as simple as McIlroy is making them out to be, then his failure to produce his best on them shows that he simply needs to play better.

After all, are the “easy” course setups on the European Tour much different to the target golf we see week in week out on the PGA Tour? After crunching some numbers, the answer appears to be no.

Ignoring WGC’s and Major championships, through 24 regular strokeplay events in 2019 on the European Tour, the average winning score has been -16.125. On the PGA Tour, through 33 standard strokeplay events, the average winning score has been -16.9. Furthermore, three European Tour events have been won by scores in the single digits under par in 2019, as opposed to the PGA Tour, where just two tournaments have produced winners in the single numbers.

The talent pool on the PGA Tour is undoubtedly greater than that of the European Tour. But it’s also worth noting that big names from across the pond such as Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele have also tried their hand on these “easy” European Tour courses in recent times, and neither player was able to land any severe blows.

The 30-year-old’s timing of his criticism, as he has since acknowledged, was poor and came one week after PGA Tour stalwart Billy Horschel said of Wentworth that

“You can’t fake it around here. If you hit shots off-line, you’re going to get penalised for it. It’s a beautiful test of golf and I absolutely have loved my entire week here. Everything that encompasses this event can rival the best of the best on the PGA Tour in my opinion.”

With the likes of Le Golf National waiting around the corner, perhaps McIlroy just needs to be more prudent in choosing which events he competes in during his trips back home to Europe.

Do you think McIlroy is justified in his criticism of European Tour course setups being too easy, WRXers?