CAJICA, COLOMBIA – Long experienced in fighting cocaine cartels and Marxist guerrillas, Colombia is training thousands of Mexican policemen as well as soldiers and court officers to help contain drug gangs that have turned parts of Mexico into virtual combat zones. • ‘I realised pretty quickly it wasn’t the right thing to do’• McIlroy returns to action on Thursday with Tiger WoodsThe world No1 Rory McIlroy acknowledged on Wednesday that he was wrong to walk off mid-round at last week’s Honda Classic and said his toothache was not bad enough to justify quitting the tournament.Facing the media for the first time since walking off the course after playing the first eight holes seven over par at PGA National, McIlroy said it soon dawned on him that he had made the wrong decision.”Obviously I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. I realised pretty quickly that it wasn’t the right thing to do,” he said before the WGC-Cadillac Championship that starts on Thursday.”No matter how bad I was playing, I should have stayed out there. I should have tried to shoot the best score possible even though it probably wasn’t going to be good enough to make the cut.”McIlroy initially told reporters last week as he was heading to his car that he was not in a “good place mentally” but a later statement cited pain from a wisdom tooth. Asked which version was the truer reflection of the reason for his withdrawal, McIlroy said: “Both. I wasn’t in a good place with my golf game. I was, you know, mentally – you know, my head was all over the place.”But at the same time, I have been struggling with my lower right wisdom tooth for over a year. So, yeah, look, my tooth was bothering me, but it wasn’t bothering me enough to probably, you know, quit, but that’s just the way it is,” said the Northern Irishman, who is paired with Tiger Woods and England’s Luke Donald at Doral’s Blue Monster course in Miami. McIlroy has
played only four full rounds in three months, missing the cut in the Abu Dhabi Championship in January and suffering a surprise first-round exit in the WGC Accenture World Match Play Championship last month in Arizona.The
23-year-old said he had spent 20 hours over the weekend working on his swing, trying to correct the fault that he blames for his poor early-season form.”I’ve worked my ass off over the last four or five days to really try and get this right,” he said. “Still, it’s a work in progress. As I said, there’s no quick fixes in golf but I’m going to go out there this week and all I care about
is my swing, and I know if I can get my swing back on track, that the results will follow.”The two-times major championship winner dismissed any suggestion that his switch to Nike clubs in January in a multimillion-pound deal was behind his disappointing displays.”I know that it’s just purely the swing. The equipment is fantastic. I have no problems at all. When I make a good swing, the ball goes where I want it and the flight I want it, so I know that it’s not that.
It’s just getting my swing on the right path,” he said.McIlroy
also dealt with speculation that he may have off-the-course issues, perhaps related to his girlfriend, the Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki, hampering his focus on the game.”No, not at all. I’ve read what’s been written and just because I have a bad day on the golf course and Caroline loses a match in Malaysia, it doesn’t mean that we’re breaking up,” he said with a laugh.”It’s
sport, and I’d rather keep my private life as private as possible. Everything on that front is great and I’m looking forward to seeing her next week when she gets to Miami,” he added.Rory
McIlroyGolfguardian.co.uk
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United agrees to transfer Troy Perkins to a Norwegian club, ending the goalie’s four-year evolved from an undrafted rookie to one of the best ML S keepers. After many years living in Georgetown and Columbia Heights, Lynda Couvillion and Michael Seidman were certified city dwellers, accustomed to close-in living. According to U.S. News & World Report, researchers there tracked more than 1,450 kids in fourth through sixth grades from 34 rural schools. A third of the kids had problems such as asthma, chronic pain, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities or emotional and behavioral