McIlroy admits World Tour hopes still “pie in the sky stuff”

Rory McIlroy at Pebble Beach earlier this year

Rory McIlroy hopes that a World Tour or a golfing Champions League might be the solution to repairing the fractured game, but he admits it’s all “pie in the sky stuff” right now.

Despite that devastating double-bogey, triple-bogey run at the 15th and 16th on Thursday that derailed his title hopes, the world number two declared himself “pretty encouraged” by the state of his game.

He added a third-round 69 to Friday’s 66 to go into the final round tied for 27th on four-under alongside a resurgent Seamus Power, who shot a 67 that included an eagle two at the 10th.

But McIlroy and Power are ten shots behind Patrick Cantlay, who gave the tournament some excitement when he bogeyed the 17th and carded a one-under 70 to lead by just two shots on 14-under from 65-shooters Xander Schauffele (his close pal) and a fit again Will Zalatoris heading into today’s final round at the Riviera Country Club.

McIlroy was still happy to talk about his form, the state of the game, and his belief as a traditionalist that players should still have to mark scorecards correctly, even if he did understand the uproar created by Jordan Spieth’s disqualification for signing for an incorrect second round score.

“I feel like it's been a pretty good tournament apart from two holes on Thursday, going double-triple on 15, 16 on Thursday wasn't ideal,” McIlroy said of his week.

“Honestly, apart from that, it's been pretty good. Sort of liked how I've played, liked how I've hit the ball.

“A couple of loose shots here and there, but overall, I've been pretty encouraged with how I played.”

He declared the 54-hole Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he finished 66th, “a bit of a write-off” after he went from six-under to one-under on day one and all but admitted he lost interest.

“I wasn't fully in it, I guess,” he said.

He’s no longer interested in working at boardroom level for the PGA Tour, but he has ideas for the game's future and outlined how a “world tour” might eventually take shape.

“It’s all pie in the sky stuff, it's all very -- you know, I think there has to be a component of the southern hemisphere, Australia, South Africa,” McIlroy said.

“There obviously has to be a component of the Far East, whether that be Korea, Japan, China. 

“Obviously, the Middle East as well. We've been going to the Middle East for a long time, but obviously Dubai, Saudi, and then sort of working our way from east to west and back into the United States for the spring and summertime.

“I don't think it will look too dissimilar to what it is right now, but maybe the front end of the year and the back end of the year might look a little different.

“I don't think we need to blow everything up, but there definitely needs to be some tweaks, I think.”

In short, he’s dreaming of a Champions League for golf. 

“I think you would just create a tour for the top 80 players in the world,” he said. 

Players would play just one tour and “everything sort of feeds up into that one”, he ventured.

“You know, the way I look at it, it would be like Champions League in European football.

“It sort of sits above the rest of the leagues and then all those leagues sort of feed up into that, and the best of the best play against each other in the Champions League is the way I would think about it.”

As for Spieth, who took four at the fourth on Friday but inadvertently signed for a three and was disqualified, McIlroy could “see both sides” of the rules debate that appears to be raging on social media.

“You know, if we're really trying to keep this game like unbifurcated and trying to -- you know, the pros play by the same rules as the amateurs, then we all need to keep our playing partners' scorecards and we're responsible for that,” he said.

“But I also see the other side of the coin where there's thousands of people watching us, every shot's tracked on Shot Tracker and on the PGA TOUR app, so if it -- is it really needed at this point?

“So I can see both sides of it, both sides of the argument. I probably am more of a traditionalist than anything else, so I fall into the camp of it's worked for so long, I don't think you really need to change it.”