Among the guests at tonight’s White House state dinner held in honor of King Charles and Queen Camilla is none other than Northern Irish golfer Rory McIlroy and his wife Erica, who live in Florida.
During his toast, President Trump had McIlroy stand up, and said his recent Masters win was “unconquerable.” Trump said, “I had to interrupt my speech. I watched that man win a tournament. That was a tough one. Congratulations, very proud of you.”
McIlroy is one of the only athlete attendees at the white tie event; other notable guests are largely from the business world, including Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, David Ellison, Jensen Huang, and more. McIlroy has a complicated history with Trump; in 2017, he played a round of golf with the president but later said he regretted it. “I haven’t done it since ... out of choice,” McIlroy told the McKellar Journal.
He added, “So I will sit here and say that day I had with him I enjoyed. But that doesn’t mean I agree with everything—or, in fact, anything—that he says.” He subsequently criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. “There’s some stuff that just is terrible. It’s not the way a leader should act. There is a bit of diplomacy that you need to show, and I just don’t think he's showing that, especially in these times.”
When asked if he would play with Trump again, McIlroy said, “I don’t know if he’d want to play with me again after what I just said. I know it’s very self-serving of me to say no, and if I don’t, then it means I’m not putting myself in position to be under scrutiny and that I'm avoiding that. But no, I wouldn’t.”
In 2025, however, he went back on that vow, and played a round with him early in the year. “It was great,” McIlroy told reporters. “It was really good. It was really good. I thought we had a good discussion. I learned that he’s not a fan of the LIV format. … I was like, but you’ve hosted their events. He’s like, yeah, but it doesn’t mean that I like it. So, I think he’s on the [PGA] Tour side.”
Earlier this month, McIlroy won the 2026 Masters, becoming just the fourth golfer in history to win back-to-back titles. The British royal family’s official social media accounts subsequently congratulated McIlroy on his “extraordinary win.” Trump, too, congratulated McIlroy on his win, posting online, “He performed tremendously under intense pressure, something which few people would be able to even think about doing. With each year, Rory is becoming more and more a LEGEND!”
The U.S. president added, “I look forward to watching him compete in two weeks at Doral. The quality of Professional Golfers today has become extraordinary, each and every one of them. They should all be proud of the way they played at The Masters this weekend!”
McIlroy, however, will not be playing at the upcoming Cadillac Championship, which begins on Thursday at the Blue Monster course, located at Trump National Doral in South Florida. It’s the first time since 2016 that the Tour will return to a Trump-owned golf course.
