Rory McIlroy feels that he has become a happier golfer and is enjoying life more since he stepped down from the PGA Tour board two years ago.
Seven victories including the Masters for the career grand slam and being on the cusp of a fourth successive Race to Dubai title. McIlroy admits he has had a clearer head both on and off the golf course since he refrained from carrying the weight of being the voice of the PGA Tour in the face of the civil war with the LIV Golf tour.
“I have a clear head and I’m out of all the political stuff in golf, basically, and I can just focus on playing and playing where I want to and making myself competitively happy by playing in the tournaments that I want to play,” said McIlroy ahead of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai where he can win his seventh order of merit crown and move to within one of Collin Montgomerie’s record haul of eight.
“And then having more time to make myself personally happy with doing the things I want to do away from golf, travelling with my family and showing my daughter different parts of the world and doing things like that I think is a very nice place to be in life.”
McIlroy served on the PGA Tour Policy Board for two years while he was also involved with the Player Advisory Council. He resigned from the board citing the personal and professional commitments required for the role.
“I think when you do something and your name is on something, you want to do it to the best of your ability. That’s sort of who I am as a person, and so whether that’s being on the board of the PGA TOUR or being the face of a brand or being involved in an investment fund, you want to do it to the best of your ability. I think it would be a disservice to myself and a disservice to the people around me if I didn’t do it like that.
“When I was on the board, I read the board materials. I was clued in. I talked to people. I got different opinions. But again, at that point, that was something that I really wanted to do but at the same time I felt like it was taking away from some of the other things I want to do in my life.
“You know, you can’t keep all the plates spinning at the same time and something had to give, and that was the thing that ultimately I had to stop doing to pursue some of these other things.
“If you look at my golf since then, it been a pretty good run. It’s been a nice — maybe a bit of a clearer head and a little bit more time to spend on practise and putting that into my game.”
Just because the Holywood man has stepped away from the politics in the men’s professional game doesn’t mean that his voice doesn’t carry a huge amount of weight in the sport. McIlroy will still give his opinion on the fracture in the men’s golfing landscape, it just won’t be up to him to solve it – he is happier that way.
“I think from a golfing perspective, you know, stepping away from the politics — look, I sit in these and I opine on the politics of the game like I did last week with LIV and 72 holes but doesn’t mean that I’m involved. But I can still give my opinion on it. I think stepping away from that stuff and being intimately involved, yeah, it’s definitely made me happier from a golfing perspective.”
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