Rory McIlroy's Peloton bike workout is clubhouse leader for cycling golfers like Lee Westwood

McIlroy’s humility belies the astonishing figures he has been recording in the days since the Tours went into lockdown. On Saturday, he revealed on Instagram another top 25 finish with statistics which experts claim would be “just below that of a borderline professional rider” and challenged his Tour colleagues to try to match it. 

Billy Horschel, the 2014 FedEx Cup champion, has been the most vocal in taking up the gauntlet, but while his frequency in the top 250 is a fine achievement he cannot yet emulate McIlroy. 

Bubba Watson, Brandt Snedeker, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth and Charley Hoffman are other PGA Tour names in pursuit, as they use this outlet to channel their competitive spirit until their profession can resume.

“I would say that is probably a massive part of it,” Westwood said. “I’m doing a ride every day at the moment, because there isn’t anything else to do. I would have been playing in the Dell [World Golf Championship] Match Play this week, at the Valero Texas Open next week and the Masters the week after. This helps focus the mind and stay in shape.”

As in golf, the pros are helping each other out. “I’ve had it about a year after a mate told me about it,” Westwood said. “And if I push it, I can get fairly high up [the rankings]. But Rory told me I should try to get up to near 200 on the watts and I was bang on that yesterday. Yeah, it was tough. 

“That was a 30-minute Tabata [a version of high-intensity intermittent exercise]. I burned 500 calories and was 1,625th out of 18,500. This morning I was 1,074th out of more than 11,000 in my 45-minute workout.”