Rory McIlroy has banned himself from social media following his row with former US PGA champion Steve Elkington after a second consecutive early exit from the US Open.
McIlroy birdied four of his last six holes at Erin Hills to improve seven shots on his opening 78, but still missed the cut by four shots.
That appeared to prompt Elkington to write on Twitter that ''Rory is so bored playiing golf...without Tiger [Woods] the threshold is prolly 4 majors with 100mill in bank.''
Four-time major winner McIlroy swiftly responded with: "More like 200mil... not bad for a ''bored'' 28 year old... plenty more where that came from'' and posted a screenshot of his Wikipedia entry which lists some of his achievements in the game.
But speaking ahead of his title defence in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, McIlroy revealed he regretted responding to Elkington and was avoiding social media for the foreseeable future.
"I must have wrote that tweet and deleted it about five times before I actually sent it," McIlroy said at Portstewart Golf Club.
"I sort of regret sending it at the end but I actually gave my wife, Erica, my phone and my Twitter and told her, 'Change my password to something else and don't tell me what it is'.
"It's not what was said. It was who said it and anyone that's been in that environment should realise how hard golf is at times. That's the thing that got to me more than anything else."
