When Rory McIlroy has a microphone close by, he is just as careful as when he has a golf club in his hand. He doesn’t make wild leaps or play “hit and hope.” McIlroy is the same way with the reporters as he is on the course: casual but knowledgeable; happy but knowledgeable.
This is why what the world’s No. 2 golfer said on a Gary Neville show last week should be looked at more closely than McIlroy’s simple but impressive U-turn on LIV Golf.
McIlroy has changed his mind about the Saudi-funded circuit, but it has been a slow process rather than an overnight realisation. He has changed his mind out of practical reasons rather than admitting that he was wrong about LIV from the start.
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There may be some truth to what McIlroy’s critics say about his decision to become a Christian, but he is looking forward, not backward, and what he says about how a team competition could work within a united global golfing calendar is not something that just came out of thin air.
McIlroy may have quit his job as a player director on the PGA Tour’s policy board, which is the group that will decide if the deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund goes through or not, but you can be sure that he is still aware of what’s going on. And not just for the Tour.
Before the meeting, we knew that McIlroy put down his pride and stopped the hate speech he was sending LIV almost every week when he met with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of LIV and governor of the PIF, in Dubai in November 2022. He then went back to the policy board and begged the Tour leaders to meet with Al-Rumayyan. This is what we didn’t know.
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He was always aware that talks were going on
So, routes that seemed to be blocked for good were opened, and the “framework agreement” was signed just a few months later. McIlroy was surprised at how quickly this news came out, but he always knew that things were going on behind the scenes. Jimmy Dunne, the Tour executive in charge of making the deals, is a family friend, and Al-Rumayyan was already known to them.
As the talks went on, McIlroy made it clear that he wanted the PIF to be a part of the deal, and the Tour quickly started looking for US backers. In fact, McIlroy’s vague threats about getting rid of the PIF and only working with American private equity, which would cause the professional male game’s cracks to show up again, can be seen as a sign that Jon Rahm would leave for £450 million last month.
And McIlroy knew that Al-Rumayyan would not be fooled. He also knew that this was a risky game to play. That’s what PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan had to do when he finally sat down with the PIF purse-master.
For some reason, some policy experts wanted to leave the Saudis alone, but McIlroy is sure that the fight should be avoided at all costs. There needs to be an answer or something has to give. No matter what the PIF does, professional male golf is a mess. At least this is your chance to make the money you need to pay the ridiculous prize money.
The golf star told the Stick to Football show, “I would love LIV to become the IPL of golf.” “They take up two months of the year.” The way you do this team work is a little different. Because you work with the environment, I would say “yeah, that sounds like fun” if they did something like that.
McIlroy chose May and November. Once more, these facts did not come from the top of his head. It makes sense.
Majors crowded too closely together
Because the PGA Tour wanted to have August all to itself to avoid the start of the NFL season in August 2018, the US PGA has been moved to May. So the majors come right after each other. The Masters in April, the US PGA the following month, the US Open in June, and the Open in July…
According to McIlroy, “if they are spaced so closely together, there is the threat that fans will only care from the second week of April to the third week of July.” These are the events that count.
The golfer added, “I’d like to see them spread out like tennis does.” “Between the Australian Open in January and the US Open in September, there is a good nine-month window…”
The US PGA could be moved to August or even September so that the PGA Tour and DP World Tour can work with the top players’ 10-month schedules. With more events, these players will need a good close season. The IPL in golf would hire the best players, and sponsors would know that the stars would be on stage at this time and in that place. And this is what McIlroy meant when he said LIV had “shown the flaws.”
“You want people to pay millions of dollars to sponsor these events, but you can’t promise the sponsors that the players will show up,” McIlroy said. “The PGA Tour has been doing so well for a long time.
The same thing US TV thinks. Even though they had billion-dollar deals with the Tour and the majors, none of the tournaments in 2023 made it into the top 100 of sports shows. It was 131st place for The Masters.
Yes, golf really didn’t make the cut, but it kept getting bigger and bigger checks that its success didn’t even begin to deserve. McIlroy is not a fool. He knows what’s strange. He will also have a say in how the books might be weighed.
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