McIlroy admits LIV Golf has been a catalyst for positive change on PGA Tour
Rory McIlroy speaks to the media at Bay Hill last week
Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm might differ on the 2024 schedule and the presence of LIV Golf rebels in the European Ryder Cup team, but they're united on one thing — the upstart Saudi-backed league has had a hugely positive effect on the PGA Tour.
The effect is mainly positive for McIlroy, who was at a 7:30 am player meeting at TPC Sawgrass yesterday to discuss the radical changes approved by the Tour Policy Board last week.
He was pleasantly surprised "the temperature in the room was nowhere near as hot as I anticipated it to be" after some mixed reaction from rank and file players such as James Hahn, who didn't turn up for the meeting after blasting the new look schedule as "hypocritical" last week.
"Like, you say all this s**t and you're not even in the meeting? If you want to get informed and be a part of the process—the fact that he wasn't even in the room was a slap in the face to everyone there," McIlroy told reporters after his Players Championship press conference.
Seven months ago, the Holywood star described LIV Golf as a force "ripping the game apart". But like Rahm, who said, "we should be thankful this threat has made the PGA Tour want to change things", he now admits the breakaway tour has forced positive change.
"I'm not going to sit here and lie," McIlroy said, admitting the LIV threat provoked almost all the PGA Tour changes. "I think the emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf.
"I think when you've been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there's not a lot of incentive to innovate. This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA Tour, and what was quite, I would say, an antiquated system is being revamped to try to mirror where we're at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape."
He explained the new 2024 schedule is "vastly different" from what the 20-player war cabinet he and Tiger Woods gathered in a Delaware hotel last August had initially proposed – 14 designated events rather than eight and fields of 50-60 rather than 70-78.
"The PGA Tour isn't just competing with LIV Golf or other sports," he said. "It's competing with Instagram and TikTok and everything else that's trying to take eyeballs away from the PGA Tour as a product. So, yeah, LIV coming along, it's definitely had a massive impact on the game, but I think everyone who's a professional golfer is going to benefit from it going forward."
With many critics disappointed by the introduction of more limited field events, no-cut next year, McIlroy came armed with statistics.
"Tiger Woods won 26 no-cut events in his career," he said. "Jack Nicklaus won 20 no-cut events. Arnold Palmer won 17."
He neglected to mention almost a third of his and Woods' worldwide wins have come in no-cut events compared to 17pc apiece for Nicklaus and Palmer, but it's clear the landscape has changed.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan sees McIlroy following in the footsteps of Woods, Palmer and Nicklaus though he stopped short, given his herculean off-course efforts these days, of asking him to host an invitational.
"Rory sat in a board meeting for seven hours last Tuesday night and finished one shot off the lead last week," he said. "I mean, it's extraordinary."
McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Séamus Power stand to win $4.5 million this week, but there is just a $2 million purse at the DP World Tour's Magical Kenya Open for Holywood's Tom McKibbin, West Waterford's Gary Hurley and Kinsale's Gary Hurley.
The Ladies European Tour is at Steenberg Golf Club in South Africa for the Investec South African Women's Open where Olivia Mehaffey is the lone Irish player.
Meanwhile, County Louth Golf Club has received the first draft of a course masterplan from architects Mackenzie and Ebert ahead of member meetings and a potential summer vote on changes to the famous Baltray links.
