Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays a stroke from the No. 12 tee during practice round 3 at Augusta National Golf Club, Wednesday, April 5, 2023.

Rory McIlroy’s former agent, Chubby Chandler, believes the world number two’s u-turn on the PGA TOUR’s merger deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund could be the first step in a shock move to LIV Golf.

Speaking to InstantCasinos.com, the former agent to LIV Golf’s Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell said the Holywood star lost fans by sticking up for the PGA TOUR in its battle with the breakaway circuit.

He also interprets McIlroy’s change of stance as a sign he may be laying the groundwork for an eventual move to LIV Golf and brands his “World Tour/Champions League” idea as nothing more than a copy of what Greg Norman wanted to launch in 1995.

“It looks a bit like that doesn’t it,” Chandler said of McIlroy’s softening stance on the Saudis as a possible precursor to a LIV Golf move.

“I'm not speaking from any knowledge or heard anything, but if you were looking at it from the outside he has done such a turn that you would think he is pfaving the way for it not to be too bad for him if he signs with LIV.”

McIlroy was left in the dark by the PGA TOUR ahead of its shock merger announcement with PIF on June 6 last year and said he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” having acted as an unofficial spokesman for the Tour over the past few years.

But having said last July that he’d give up golf if the circuit headed by Greg Norman was the only option, a McIlroy move to LIV would be seismic for the PGA TOUR.

"If LIV Golf was the last place to play golf on earth I would retire,” McIlroy said at the Scottish Open.

He’s since softened his view on the PIF deal, believing it’s better to have the Saudis investing in golf than disrupting from outside.

Chubby Chandler was a Golf Digest Ireland cover story in late 2011

“They are still sitting out there with hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, that they're going to pour it into sport,” he said when Jordan Spieth recently suggested that the Tour could go ahead without LIV now that they have a $3 billion private equity deal with the Strategic Sports Group.

“Not having them as your partner, I don't think is an option for the game of golf.”

McIlroy resigned from the PGA TOUR policy board late last year before his Ryder Cup teammates Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton signed for LIV.

Having previously said that those who defect to the Saudi-funded league “can always go through Q School” if they want to return to the PGA TOUR, he now says they should be allowed to return without sanction.

“I think it's hard to punish people,” McIlroy said. “Obviously I've changed my tune on that because I see where golf is and I see that having a diminished PGA Tour and having a diminished LIV Tour or anything else is bad for both parties.”

“People got a bit fed up with Rory saying this, that and the other”

Former ISM boss Chandler has never been a fan of McIlroy as a spokesman for the PGA TOUR and its chief ally in its battle with LIV Golf. “It was terrible for him,” he said.

“He must have dreaded going into press conferences, to go through the diatribe he did. I firmly believe he was trying to do the right thing for the PGA Tour but why did he manage to put himself on the pedestal he did, and to allow that to happen?

“I think he lost a few fans; people got a bit fed up with Rory saying this, that and the other in the end. It was all engineered by the PGA Tour, that Rory would stand up for them. He definitely took his eye off the ball.”

Chandler believes the fierce opposition to Saudi sportswashing in the golf media was an example of brainwashing — a jibe that Greg Norman has also aimed at McIlroy.

“People have been brainwashed,” Chandler said. “Golf media for two years has hated LIV. Why? Because everyone has been told to hate LIV.

“I’m very lucky to have the knowledge I’ve got from 40-odd years in golf, and having stepped out, I can look at what’s going on and be able to say things because it doesn’t matter any more.

“The golf press has been absolutely indoctrinated by the PGA tour, and they’ve been told, ‘If you do that with LIV, you can’t do anything with us’. That’s ridiculous.

“Some of the stuff that’s gone on has been ridiculous. If a golf course holds a LIV event you can’t host on the PGA Tour - it’s a golf course for God’s sake. The golf course hasn’t done anything.

“It has been ridiculously childish.”

“World Tour? Greg Norman had the idea. It was exactly what they are talking about now, as if it is a new idea.”

As for McIlroy’s suggestion that golf should create a World Tour that looks like soccer’s Champions League, Chandler said: “1995 Greg Norman had the idea. It’s bizarre that it was Greg, but that’s what his World Tour was all about. I think he was 65 and not 80 players, but it was exactly what they are talking about now, as if it is a new idea.

“Greg was that person, and Arnold Palmer was in one of the final meetings and Arnold Palmer stood up and said ‘guys, this isn’t for us’. And they all walked.

“It always was a decent concept. And when they had the World Golf Championship events, that was a similar idea, the problem was the WGC were really owned by the PGA Tour so you ended up having five events in America and one for the rest of the world, and the Americans didn’t go there.”

The WGCS might be gone but Chandler is convinced LIV Golf is far from finished.

“Is it sportwashing? It probably is”

“LIV is here to stay,” he said. “I fortunately have met Yasir Al-Rumayyan, I’ve had the benefit of time with him, and it was very, very interesting.

“He told me about Newcastle (United in football) before it all happened. They’ve got a lot of money, and you can see what they are trying to do. Is it sportwashing? It probably is, but it’s only what other countries do. Other countries do exactly the same.

“Everybody talks about Saudi now, whether it be tennis, snooker. I see snooker is going there with a £2million prize money. I’m not sure they play for £2million that often.

“They are at least putting themselves out there and on the map. Some of the things they get wrong in Saudi will be put right because they’ve got all this international sport.

“I came to South Africa during the apartheid years; I don’t think us coming to South Africa did anything but help the situation rather than harm it.

LIV Golf Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan chats with Graeme McDowell of Smash GC before the second round of the LIV Golf Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Country Club on Friday, February 09, 2024 in Las Vegas, United States. (Photo by Doug DeFelice/LIV Golf)

“For everybody to come round to getting things right, LIV had to go through the spell it has gone through, and now it is beginning to get there.

“Golf has had to suffer to get to where it needs to get to. What we cannot underestimate is that massive change that has happened over the last two years, and that LIV have managed to survive that and have got a product that people are starting to understand.

“People are understanding that the good players on LIV are still good players. DJ won in Vegas just like he won when he was on the PGA Tour; he didn’t look any different; he was focused and intense.”

The former agent compares LIV Golf to the arrival of T20 cricket.

“People need to realise that the PGA Tour and LIV are not the same thing, it’s not the same form of golf. It’s like a T20 cricket compared to a Test match.”

“I love cricket, and I have no qualms watching T20 and no qualms watching a Test match, but don’t expect them to be the same, because they’re not,” he said.

“It’s the same with golf; three rounds is different from four, so when they tee it up on day one, they are going at it. They are not trying to just get into the tournament, to be patient, they get after it early.”

Trump Turnberry’s Open ban is “political and snobbery”

Chandler also weighed in on the R&A’s refusal to consider Trump Turnberry for The Open while Donald Trump remains its owner as well as Tiger Woods’ decision to start his own apparel brand.

“It was political and snobbery,” he said of the Turnberry decision. “It’s absolutely outrageous that the best links course in Britain doesn’t have The Open. It was always very good but he made it better. Basically what he’s done is move the course 100 yards nearer the sea.

“You can only do what he has done if you have big enough thoughts and the money to do it, but he’s done an unbelievable job, it’s just a great golf course. As is Aberdeen, Trump, West Palm Beach. His golf products are very good.

“It's a stigma. There is a stigma associated with him and they’ve just gone ‘oh no we can’t be doing that’. If you wanted an unbelievable Championship that would be the place to have it. It’s better than a lot of the other Open courses.

“He’s a great character, I like him enormously. He’s a very funny man - he doesn’t know he’s being funny, but he is. He’s been great for golf. His golf product is fantastic, and he can play you know. He’s alright.”

“Tiger should have started doing his own brand ten years ago”

As for Woods’ decision to leave Nike and launch his Sun Day Red brand at Riviera last week, Chandler said: “Tiger should have started doing his own brand ten years ago, then he would have been big. Michael Jordan’s brand was developing as he was playing.

“The problem is that if you're a Nike athlete, Nike owns your brand. You are a Nike athlete and they dictate what you are doing. Jordan was so big he did that Air Jordan deal and got the royalties sorted. It’s just a ridiculous amount of money.

“His TW logo never meant as much as it should have done, it was never as strong as it should have been, as strong as the Bear was or the Umbrella was.

“If Tiger had started ten years before his brand would be much stronger, and it probably should have been with Nike. It’s suddenly odd that he’s now with Taylor-Made. I think he would have retired from playing without it, and that’s sad that he’s having to play.

“It’s not great what happened when he walked off the other week, and I’m sure he was sick. But it just devalues some of the stuff he has done in his life.

“When you look at what he’s done, and when you compare the stats of what Tiger has done compared to everybody else, you forget how good he was. His stats are staggering.”