Rory McIlroy says LIV Golf has benefitted every professional golfer

Rory McIlroy, speaking before this week’s PLAYERS Championship, explained how the emergence of LIV has benefited everyone who plays elite professional golf. 

The 2019 PLAYERS Champion admitted that the PGA Tour’s competitor has made the professional game better for everyone who plays it, regardless of whether they play on the Greg Norman-fronted circuit or not. 

 “I’m not going to sit here and lie; I think the emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf,” said the 33-year-old. 

“I think when you’ve been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there’s not a lot of incentive to innovate.  

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“This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA TOUR, and what was quite, I would say, an antiquated system is being revamped to try to mirror where we’re at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape.  

“So, yeah, you know, LIV coming along, it’s definitely had a massive impact on the game, but I think everyone who’s a professional golfer is going to benefit from it going forward.” 

McIlroy’s comments come after a meeting of PGA Tour players this morning, where the new system for elevated events was discussed. Next year, the new schedule for players will see elevated events feature smaller fields, with no cuts after 36 holes, effectively guaranteeing pay outs for top players. This will leave other events with potentially weaker fields and smaller purses. According to the current world No. 3, this morning’s meeting at TPC Sawgrass had a lower temperature than he was expecting.   

“I think when more information and data was presented to them, the people that maybe had reservations about it I think came around, or at least were more informed on their opinions. 

“I think the Tour executives did a really good job of basically just walking them through the slides that we saw in the board meeting last Tuesday, obviously not to the same degree of detail. We were in that board meeting for almost seven hours last Tuesday. 

“Obviously we’re all here trying to get ready for one of the biggest tournaments of the year. So with that time crunch, we just sort of took the most important slides and showed them to the membership. Yeah, I think it was good for them to see that and to see what the thinking is behind what we’re really trying to do here. I think the temperature in the room was nowhere near as hot as I anticipated it to be once the information was sort of laid out.” 

McIlroy also admitted that he hopes to be able to take something of a break from talking about the Saudi-backed golf league every week, despite him saying it hasn’t negatively impacted his performance on the course. 

“I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of trying to balance both of those things,” he said. “I feel like over the past 12 months I’ve played pretty well, but at the same time, I’ve had all of this other stuff to deal with. 

“When I went on the board of the PGA Tour, I didn’t imagine it would take up this much time. But I think it’s been important work, and I’m proud of the steps that we and the PGA Tour have made to try to make everything better for the membership and try to stem the flow of players that have went to LIV. 

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“Hopefully with these new changes that have been announced, hopefully the majority of my time will be spent on concentrating on getting ready for golf tournaments and trying to be the best player that I can be.  

“Not that I feel like it’s taken away any of that, but it might give me a bit more free time to do other things that I enjoy, as well.” 

Lewis Fraser As bunkered’s Performance Editor, Lewis oversees the content that’s designed to make you a better player. From the latest gear to tuition, nutrition, strategy and more, he’s the man. A graduate of the University of Stirling, Lewis joined bunkered in 2021. Formerly a caddie at Castle Stuart Golf Links, he is a member of Bathgate Golf Club where he plays off four.

Performance Editor