Golf-McIlroy enjoys lengthy presidential lunch with Clinton

Reuters

Aug 28 (Reuters) - Having displayed mainly regal form on the PGA Tour in his last four starts, Rory McIlroy benefited from some presidential advice ahead of this week's Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Massachusetts. Two days after finishing in a tie for 22nd at The Barclays in New Jersey, where his brilliant run of three successive wins came to an end, McIlroy enjoyed a lengthy lunch with former U.S. president Bill Clinton in Sag Harbor, New York. "It was a cool afternoon," Northern Irish world number one McIlroy, 25, told reporters on Thursday on the eve of the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second of the PGA Tour's four FedExCup playoff events. "Any time you get a chance to spend some time with a person like that ... the stories that he can tell and the life experiences that he's had. He's just a great man to listen to. He's obviously a huge golf fan, so we talked a lot about golf. "We talked about a lot of other stuff. It's really interesting and it's almost like you get a lifetime of sort of education on that stuff that you didn't already know. I take a lot out of those sorts of experiences." McIlroy, whose sizzling run of form over the past six weeks included major victories at the British Open and the PGA Championship, said his lunch with Clinton came about after their golf plans for Tuesday morning had to be cancelled. "I think he promised (his wife) Hillary he had to do something," said McIlroy, who played a few practice rounds on Long Island earlier this week at Sebonack and Shinnecock Hills. "So he spent the morning with her and her family ... but it (the lunch) was great. "You look at your watch and you've not realised that you've been sitting there for three hours, just chatting about any topic you want in the world. He has enough knowledge to know everything about it." McIlroy will be bidding for his fourth PGA Tour victory of the year when he tees off in Friday's opening round at the TPC Boston in Norton. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)