McIlroy '˜put beliefs to one side' for Trump round

McIlroy will return to the PGA Tour in Mexico this week after nearly two months out with a rib injury and during a press conference he fielded a number of questions about his game with the president.

Last week he hit back at those who had labelled him a bigot and a fascist, and in the conference streamed live on the PGA Tour’s Facebook page on Tuesday night, the topic came up again.

The Northern Ireland golfer explained: “It’s not as if we were talking foreign policy out there. We were talking golf.”

He added: “I was just doing what I felt was respectful.

“The president of the United States phones you up and wants to play golf with you. I wasn’t going to say no. I don’t agree with everything he says but it is what it is.”

He said he was “a little taken aback” by the “blowback” from the round though he said he understood why it caused a fuss.

He said: “Obviously we know how the campaign went and how devisive it was. I just approached it as a round of golf.”

McIlroy said he’d played golf with President Clinton, spent time with President Bush and would have played a round with President Obama if he had asked.

He said in each case it was a matter of “putting beliefs to one side”.

When asked if the fall out over the Trump round compared to anything he had to deal with at home in Northern Ireland in a political sense, he said: “I feel like my generation has moved past all that. People have become way closer together. It doesn’t matter whether you’re catholic or protestant. We get along.”