The world’s top-ranked golfer made news over the weekend when he walked off the course at the PGA’s Honda Classic, in Florida.

Rory McIlroy was seven shots over par for the day, after eight holes, and his second shot on his ninth hole found the water … and there went Rory for the parking lot, where he told a few reporters who ran him down there that he “was not in good place, mentally.”

Ah, but isn’t that a breach of golfing etiquette? Isn’t this a sport, like tennis and cricket, where you are supposed to internalize your disappointment? Muddle through? Be brave, all that?

Not that I personally expect them to do all those things. That would be hypocritical.

As a golfer, some 30 years ago, I couldn’t really swing it but I could chuck it. Yes, I was a club thrower. And a club abuser.

Once, when a poor drive had left me some long ways from the green on a par-four hole at Recreation Park in Long Beach, I pulled out a 3-wood and hit a ball sideways. Now, I should not have been hitting a 3-wood at any point in time. But I was not happy, and I wasn’t going to restrain myself.

I was standing near a tree, and I struck an extended branch with the 3-wood — not taking into account that the wooden head at the end of the rod would be carrying a lot of energy — and the club wrapped around the branch. Which would have left me nonplussed (the club deserved it), but they were my father’s clubs, and I had just trashed one, even though I tried to straighten it out.

Luckily, he was not playing golf by then, and soon, neither was I, which I always considered an advancement in the sport of golf.

It is a frustrating game. Four hours of walking, with 75 (or in my case, more than 100) instances where you stop and concentrate and attempt to his a small ball and direct its flight.

So, for sure, I understand Rory walking off. The problem is, he is supposed to be better than the ill-tempered duffers of the world. He is supposed to do what he told Sports Illustrated: “It was a reactive decision. What I should have done is take my drop, chip it on, try to make a 5 and play my hardest on the back nine, even if I shot 85. 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.”

Well, he at least recognizes it. Some of the rest of us never would have regretted stalking off a golf course. And it was a big improvement on the lame “aching wisdom teeth” excuse he came up with, after leaving the course, so he would not be penalized.

He has had a horrible year, so far, and it just happens to coincide with the enormous deal he signed with Nike, to great fanfare, with our reporter looking on, when he was here in Abu Dhabi, ahead of the tournament here. A deal worth maybe $100 million that came with a bit of a poison pill — he had to use Nike clubs.

He missed the cut here (along with Tiger), went over to the Match Play in Arizona and got beat in the first round, and got in 26 holes at PGA National in Florida before sending that ball to a watery grave with the Nike clubs he apparently hates — or at least can’t play with worth a damn.

Yes, he should have taken a drop and played his hardest and taken his 85 like a well-mannered golfer. We expect that from our No. 1.

Not that I could do it. This is one of those “do what I say, not what I do” things. Rory ought to be better than the rest of us. See to it, please.