Rory McIlroy has questioned whether LIV players would bring value to the PGA Tour should they wish to return while he defended his current playing schedule after a poor performance in the first FedEx Cup playoff event last week.
The second playoff event, the BMW Championship at Bellerive coincides with LIV’s final event of the season in Indianapolis after the Saudi backed tour’s tumultuous year cast its future into turmoil with big name players like Jon Rahm reportedly angling for an escape route back to the PGA Tour.
“I’d argue have they brought value to LIV? I think the PGA Tour is in a really good spot,” McIlroy said in response to a question at the pre-tournament press conference in St Louis. “I feel like I have kept my position consistent that LIV has never been a good thing for the game. Whatever 2.0 looks like if it even happens they say they are trying to be more collaborative.”
McIlroy has been consistent in his stance against LIV Golf since its inception in 2022 and has reiterated his belief that the PGA Tour remains the best place to play men’s professional golf. He did however, sound regretful that the landscape of the game has become so fractured and feels the PGA Tour wouldn’t have mismanaged $6bn the way the PIF backed disruptor tour squandered it to its likely demise.
Meanwhile, the PGA Tour is set for a much publicised revamp for the 2028 season.
“This is the best platform [PGA Tour] for the best professional golfers in the world. Were there some things at the start of LIV that the PGA Tour could have done better? Sure.
“The guys that went, think back to the start, Phil was unhappy with some stuff and surely that warranted a conversation instead of blowing the entire professional game up and doing something else.
“I don’t take any personal satisfaction in people losing jobs. That doesn’t seem right, but this [PGA Tour] is the best place to play professional golf. If the PGA Tour were handed 6 billion dollars they would have done a better job with it.”
McIlroy took three weeks off before winning the Masters but having not played since last month’s Open Championship, he admitted on Sunday that he was miles off the pace required after a very underwhelming performance at the FedEx St Jude Championship where he was third last.
But despite playing just 14 events worldwide including the four majors he insists he needs to find balance in his schedule and added he is pencilled in to compete in five of the next six weeks on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and that he will end up playing more than most of the top players because of his global schedule.
There has been a lot of change in McIlroy’s personal life, a move back to Wentworth with his family and he feels like he is in a different place in his life where family affairs will take priority over his fourteen clubs in the bag.
“I played a lot until I took the three weeks off. Having to withdraw from Bay Hill wasn’t ideal and having to play with a slight niggle in my back at the Players wasn’t ideal either. You’re going back to a golf course I’ve played since 2009 so I guess it has changed over the years but you become very familiar with it.
“As the years go on life happens and things that you didn’t have in your mid 20s you have in your mid 30s over golf right? Things with your family and things you don’t want to miss that’s the stage of life where I am at not all my eggs are in the golf basket.
“There are other things I want to do and feel I have to do. It’s a balance, some years I will play more and others play where it is a little bit lighter. But it’s a balance of playing enough to make sure you stay sharp but also having a balance that you feel like you are not missing out on other things you want to do.
“It’s about trying to be home enough, it’s Poppy’s first day of school today, I would have loved to be home for that but I’m here so stuff like that. Ten years ago I didn’t have but I do these days I am in a different spot.”
McIlroy was also asked about the form of Scottie Scheffler after he won for the second time this season in runaway fashion.
“If Scottie keeps gaining nine strokes on the green every week we are all ‘effed”
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