What Rory McIlroy told Brandel Chamblee when they first met after he criticized his weight-lifting

The 36-year-old was working hard lifting weights in the gym back then.

And Chamblee shared his belief at the time that McIlroy should not be going down that road.

What Rory McIlroy told Brandel Chamblee when they first met

Interestingly, Brandel Chamblee recently predicted that Rory McIlroy will win only one more major championship throughout the rest of his career.

However, he is a self-confessed huge fan of the five-time major champion.

In spite of that, he didn’t agree with the weightlifting programme that McIlroy undertook back in 2013.

When speaking on The Golf Channel on Tuesday night, Chamblee shared a wonderful story about the first time he met McIlroy face-to-face.

“You know, the first interaction I had with him was in 2013,“ Chamblee said.

“I don’t know if you remember this when he had some sort of injury. I can’t remember what it was. Perhaps it was an intercostal.

“I remember looking up this particular injury, and it was consistent with lifting heavy in the gym, and I thought, Gosh, you know, don’t go down that road, not like Tiger Woods, and get built up, and get injured.

“So, you know, on Golf Central Live From, I said something cautionary about that.

“And the next day, Rory posted some video and added to me in it on X, where he was lifting heavy and said, ‘Yeah, I’m listening to you, Brandel’, or something like those lines.

“I think the next day, just having a little bit of fun, I did Golf Today, and I did curls with hairspray bottles or something like that.

“So, the next time I would have even seen Rory, I was at the Match Play, and I was at the end of the stage.

“That was when we had the big production of all the matches coming together.

“Rory came out behind me, and he had to go do an interview.

“He was just walking off, and I feel somebody tap me on the back, and I turn around, and it’s Rory.

“He goes, ‘Hey, I was just having fun with you on X the other day. You didn’t get mad about that, did you? That’s what we do’.

“You know, we were just having a little bit of fun, and I just thought that was generous on his part. It was gracious on his part.“

The McIlroy apple didn’t fall far from the tree

Chamblee told a terrific story about McIlroy’s father, Gerry.

“I ended up at a dinner once and at that dinner, I was sitting next to Gerry, his father,“ Chamblee said.

“Sean, his manager, was down at the end, and, of course, Sean was going to graciously buy dinner for everybody.

“We got to talking to a waitress, and she was headed off to college very soon.

“And out of the corner of my eye, towards the end of dinner, I just happened to notice out of the corner of my eye, Gerry, with a couple hundred, couple hundred dollar bills, just passed them to the waitress.

“I turned around, and I know Jerry wanted to do that anonymously, and I caught it, and I kind of looked at him, and he looked like a kid who had just been caught dipping into the cookie jar, you know?

“He looked at me, and he goes, ‘Hey, I’ve had a wonderful run in life. Those hundies don’t mean a lot to me, but they’ll mean everything to her’.

“And I just thought, you know, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.“

That is a magnificent story and it offers an insight into the impressive values that the McIlroy family holds.