Rory McIlroy thinks that Donald Trump’s return to presidency could help unify the fractured landscape of men’s professional golf by brokering a deal between the PGA Tour and the breakaway Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

Yet he chose to do what he always does in press conferences (not always wisely): answer the question he was asked. In this instance, on this day, he ought to have taken a lead from his late compatriot, Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney: “Whatever you say, you say nothing.”