Rory McIlroy thinks LIV Golf could have obtained world ranking points for their events if they had stuck with a 54-hole format and is unsure if switching to a more conventional 72-hole tournament format is the right thing to do.
McIlroy feels that so many LIV players have seen their world ranking plummet since the tour’s inception in 2022 that if they do get ranking points for events the strength of field will be very low with the likes of Dustin Johnson (604), Cameron Smith (310), Brooks Koepka (229) and Graeme McDowell (2103) collapsing down the rankings.
“I think it’s a peculiar move because I think they could have got ranking points with three rounds. I don’t think three rounds versus four rounds is what was holding them back,” McIlroy said ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links as he looks to polish off a seventh Race to Dubai title taking him one shy of Colin Montgomerie’s record.
“It certainly puts them more in line with traditional golf tournaments than what we’ve all done. It brings them back into not really being a destructor and sort is of falling more in line with what everyone else does. But if that’s what they felt they needed to do to get the ranking points, I guess that’s what they had to do.
“I think what’s hard is you’ve got the LIV guys, and say potentially they get World Rankings, but because their strength of fields are going to be so weak because a lot of the guys have fallen already in the rankings because they have not had ranking points for so long, I don’t know if the ranking points are really going to benefit them.
“It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
This week will be McIlroy’s 20th event of the season with the DP World Tour Championship being his 21st and final event of the current season before taking his 2025 to a close in Australia.
22 events in all will be four less than he played last year. It worked a treat as he finally clinched the Masters and the career grand slam following an electric start to the season where he won at Pebble Beach and The Players while he won the Irish Open in September.
Heading into next year, the 35-year-old might trim down his event schedule even more in focusing on the bigger events but his DP World Tour appearances won’t diminish.
“I would say, if anything, playing even less than I have this year. I think I’ll play the same amount of tournaments on the DP World Tour, if not more, but I’ve alluded to the fact that I’m going to play a little bit less just throughout the year. Really prioritise the major championships and a few of the other bigger events.
“But the world of golf, I describe it as keeping you on the hamster wheel. And sometimes it’s nice to get off that hamster wheel and do things your own way.
“I’m not getting any younger,” added the 36-year-old. “If I want to play competitively for another ten years like Justin Rose has, for example, I have to remember that I’m not 23 anymore and I can’t play that schedule forever. So I think to try to have the longevity that I want to have, I’m going to have to cut back my schedule a little bit over these next few years to make sure I stay injury-free and I play up until the point that I want to.”
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