Sports

Getting to the ‘tooth’ of Rory’s withdrawal

On Friday, Rory McIlroy made what he now is calling the worst decision of his life on a golf course — quitting in the middle of the second round of the Honda Classic at PGA National, where he had won the year before to elevate to the No. 1 world ranking.

On Sunday, Jack Nicklaus, who has become a friend and mentor to McIlroy, weighed in on McIlroy’s actions.

“I think if he had waited five more minutes he wouldn’t have done that,’’ Nicklaus said.

McIlroy, in an interview with Sports Illustrated, sounded as if he wished he had waited those five more minutes before making his rash decision.

“It was a reactive decision,” McIlroy said in the interview, which was posted online yesterday.

McIlroy was 7-over par through eight holes on Friday and, while playing the 18th (his ninth hole of the round), he walked off the course after hitting his approach shot into the water.

McIlroy initially told reporters he was “not in a good place mentally,’’ and that he had no physical problem that forced him to quit.

A short time later, McIlroy’s representatives sent out a statement saying his withdrawal was because of wisdom-tooth pain.

“What I should have done is take my drop, chip it on, try to make a five and play my hardest on the back nine, even if I shot 85,’’ McIlroy said. “What I did was not good for the tournament, not good for the kids and the fans who were out there watching me — it was not the right thing to do.”

McIlroy said in the SI interview he was having wisdom-tooth problems and that his dentist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, faxed a letter to the PGA Tour offices yesterday describing a condition with both of the golfer’s lower wisdom teeth.

Still, McIlroy did not sound as if he withdrew because of the wisdom teeth.

He admitted that when his second shot went into the water on the 18th hole his thought was, “I don’t want to be here.

So he shook hands with his playing partners, Ernie Els and Mark Wilson, and walked to the parking lot to his car and drove the 10-minute ride to his nearby home with his mind racing.

“By the time I got home I was saying, ‘We need to reassess here.’ ”

He said he spoke several times to his agent and his girlfriend, tennis player Caroline Wozniacki — which counters reports coming from British papers that McIlroy’s malaise was due to a problem in their relationship.

McIlroy said he did not read any news or commentary about his withdrawal and he was staying off Twitter.

“Whatever people are saying,” he said, “I probably already said to myself.”

mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com