Rory McIlroy has a warning for the PGA Tour. The world number two believes the threat of LIV Golf forced the tour into changes that may not have been necessary, and some well-established events could now pay the price.
Speaking ahead of the US Open at Shinnecock Hills, McIlroy reflected on how the PGA Tour responded when LIV first lured away top talent with multimillion-dollar contracts four years ago.
“You start to realize the way the Tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,” McIlroy said. “It was a pretty good structure, and everything sort of worked pretty well.”
A False Economy
Rory McIlroy was central to the PGA Tour’s fight against LIV Golf, including being part of the famous Delaware meeting in August 2022 that helped shape the tour’s response. That response included creating eight signature events with smaller fields and $20 million prize funds.
Now, with LIV’s threat fading after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced it would stop financing the league at the end of the year, McIlroy believes those changes may have gone too far.
“LIV created this false economy where we had to up prize funds and had to cut fields and try to support the top players,” he said. “I think it needed to happen because that was the only way to retain talent at the time. But now that LIV looks like it’s less of a threat, the old ways of the PGA Tour weren’t actually that bad.”
Concerns Over Track 2 System
McIlroy is particularly worried about the PGA Tour’s planned two-tier ranking system, where events will be split into Track 1 and Track 2 categories under new chief executive Brian Rolapp’s restructuring plan.
“An event like last week, the Canadian Open, potentially going to one of these Track 2s,” McIlroy said. “Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry event. I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those.”
He fears that historic tournaments could lose their standing simply because of sponsorship dollars.
“I just think there’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30 million,” he said. “That’s the tough thing.”
McIlroy made clear he has no direct influence over these decisions despite his concerns. “I’m not in those rooms. I play my schedule, and I’ll continue to play my schedule, which is getting less and less as the years go on.”
Rory McIlroy begins his US Open campaign on Thursday alongside Ludvig Aberg and Tommy Fleetwood.
