Rory McIlroy’s true feelings on Saudi investment in golf as LIV aim to recruit up to 12 new stars
Rory McIlroy has a clear vision for golf’s future despite more players potentially jumping ship to the breakaway LIV Golf tour – with as many as 12 contacting Greg Norman
PGA Tour loyalist Rory McIlroy has conceded the Middle East will have a part to play in golf’s future – as he continues to push for a World Tour.
McIlroy has been a big critic of the Saudi-backed breakaway tour, LIV Golf. However, fractured relationships could be fixed, with talks between the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the PGA and the DP World Tour taking place to come together.
McIlroy, who’s no longer a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board after resigning in November last year, has a clear vision for golf’s future. “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,” the four-time major winner said.
“There obviously has to be a component of the Far East, whether that be Korea, Japan, and 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. “
However, the PGA Tour could haemorrhage more players, with LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman admitting more players will join following Jon Rahm’s move to the tour. Norman says “eight to 12” players have been in contact to join the series.
He added: “It tells you the value of what our platform is, where these PGA Tour players see the opportunity that LIV offers. All the guys that play on LIV are just so happy about the decision that they’ve made. LIV is a different platform to the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour and the players want to do both quite honestly, so we’ve created something special. It’s a franchise, it’s a team model and they have embraced it 100 per cent.”
Questions have been raised about how a single World Tour would fit into the schedules of the LIV Golf League, PGA and DP World Tour. “I think you would just create a tour for the top 80 players in the world,” McIlroy said.
“I think everything sort of feeds up into that one. 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.
“I said this at the back end of last year, everyone’s got their own interests in this game and that’s what happens when you’ve got quite a fractured landscape at this point.
“So trying to align everyone’s interests and trying to convince everyone that this is the right thing to do for the game of golf as a whole, and if you can convince everyone of that, then it would be pretty simple. But right now it’s just trying to get everyone singing off the same hymn sheet.”
