Rory McIlroy on LIV Golf, NFL and New York

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy has good reason to live in South Florida from the year-round opportunity to hone his game, to a long list of peers sharing the same zip code and the tax breaks.

Especially the tax breaks.

But McIlroy, who has called Jupiter, Florida, his home for a decade, revealed his golf crush Tuesday, and it may surprise those who believe golf starts and stops in Palm Beach County.

“The northeast is sort of my favorite golf to play in this country,” McIlroy said from Oak Hill Country Club, site of this year’s PGA Championship.

“I love the golf courses up here and I love the tradition, and a lot of the historic golf course architects started their journeys up here and have built some amazing golf courses.”

McIlroy has other reasons to talk up western New York, one that supersedes golf. Rochester is where his wife, Erica Stoll, was born and raised. They married on April 22, 2017.

Still, McIlroy doesn’t quite see this week’s PGA Championship as a homecoming, but acknowledges the connection and increased popularity with so much family in the area.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a hometown event, but it’s hopefully going to get some more support than most of the others in the field, which is nice,” he said.

“I’ve spent summers here, I’ve spent falls here, I’ve spent a few Christmases here. I really love the seasons. We live in Florida. We don’t get that. So it’s nice to come up here and see the leaves change in October and have the snow at Christmastime. There’s certainly parts of it that I’ve really enjoyed and will continue to enjoy.”

Something else we don’t get very much in South Florida, a winning NFL team. Which brings us to another way Rory has connected to family, friends and fans in Western New York.

“It certainly makes it easier to root for the Bills when Josh Allen is throwing the football,” he said.

McIlroy has never met Allen, missing his chance at this year’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

“I’d obviously love to meet him,” he said.

Time off to address mental health

McIlroy, 34, is hoping to use the PGA Championship as a restart to his season after a difficult few weeks. Besides missing the cut at the Masters, he has been taking time off to work on his mental health, and they there was forfeiting $3 million from his Player Impact Program payout for opting out of a second “elevated event,” the RBC Heritage.

Nobody had more on his plate in the last few years than McIlroy. He took on the…