Rory McIlroy takes swipe at Phil Mickelson

Rory McIlroy had a dig at Phil Mickelson as the PGA Tour announced a raft of radical changes.

Alterations have been made to get the biggest names in the sport facing off more often in a series of “elevated events” with increased purses, while the Player Impact Program has also been tweaked and expanded.

McIlroy himself, along with Tiger Woods, has launched a new venture in partnership with the tour which will see teams of stars go head to head in a tech-driven stadium environment. The pair were also at the forefront of a players-only meeting last week.

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The changes are widely seen as an attempt to fend off the threat of LIV Golf, of which Mickelson is one of the most high-profile defectors.

Earlier this year the six-time major winner publicly aired his gripes with the PGA Tour, kicking off a chain of events which eventually led to him taking a break from golf for several months.

After the tour’s announcement, McIlroy was asked whether Mickelson’s arguments had any merit.

“As much as I probably don’t want to give Phil any sort of credit at all, yeah, there were certain points that he was trying to make,” McIlroy said.

“But there’s a way to go about them. There’s a way to collaborate. You get all the top players in the world together and you get them on the same page.

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“You then go to the Tour and you suggest ideas and you work together. This was pure collaboration.

“As I said, this isn’t some sort of renegade group trying to take some sort of power grab of the PGA Tour. This is, okay, how can we make this Tour better for everyone that’s going to play on it now and everyone that’s going to play on the PGA Tour going forward.

“Were some of these ideas, did they have merit? Of course they did. But he just didn’t approach it the right way.”