SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Now that LIV Golf is flailing and the sport has pulled itself out of what once felt like a day-to-day crisis cycle, Rory McIlroy sees the future — and the past — a little differently.
“You start to realize that the way the tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,” McIlroy said Tuesday, as he prepared for the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
The six-time major champion, once seen as the frontline defender of the PGA
Tour when it was fighting to rebuild itself in the wake of the LIV startup, is now waiting to see what the tour does next.
He recognizes that LIV's injection of billions into the sport “created a false economy” that forced the tour to respond. Though it has made the rich richer with the creation of “signature" events with $20 million purses, McIlroy isn't so sure that — or whatever comes next — is better than what came before it.
One potential casualty of the shift: events like last week’s Canadian Open — a tournament with a national title on the line that McIlroy has won twice in the past seven years but skipped this year. It has been relegated to second-class status on the current schedule and could fall even further if it ends up part of what is being called “Track 2” in the tour's next model, expected to kick off in 2028.
Last week’s Canadian Open, won by 40th-ranked Bud Cauley, featured four players in the top 10.
“Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry event,” McIlroy said of what essentially is the tour's current minor league. “That’s what Track 2 is going to be. So I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those.”
Anything McIlroy says carries more weight, in part because of his resume and in part because when LIV started up, he was its biggest critic among the players.
As time passed, McIlroy grew weary of being a frontman and eventually settled into the idea that, while he preferred the PGA Tour and its connection to tradition and history, others made their decisions and that didn't mean they couldn't get along.
Now, LIV is looking for funding after the Saudis announced they were pulling out of the investment. The PGA Tour: still revamping.
Next week, the tour will unveil more details about tweaks to its new model. It is expected to increase fields to up to 130 players (from around 72) and restore the 36-hole cut in so-called Track 1 events.
The lesser events would be mostly for players to work their way into the top. It makes the futures for those events less certain, in part because sponsors won't pay as much to put their names on tournaments where they know the top players will be absent.
“I just think there’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30 million,” McIlroy said. “So that’s the tough thing.”
The trip to Shinnecock Hills on Long Island marks McIlroy's first tournament in the New York area since last year's Ryder Cup, where his R-rated exchanges with fans marked a low point in that event's long history.
There is, of course, an “Us vs. Them” nature to the Ryder Cup that doesn't exist in week-to-week golf, where McIlroy plays most of his rounds in front of appreciative galleries.
There was one moment at the PGA Championship last month outside of Philadelphia where a fan shouted “U-S-A!” after McIlroy hit a bad shot; McIlroy shouted a profanity at the fan, but nothing more came from the episode.
Now, he's back in New York — ready for whatever the golf course, and the gallery, throws at him.
“Was it a rough week for me at times? Absolutely,” he said of the Ryder Cup. “But it is what it is. If that’s a price to pay to live the life that I’m living, then I’m OK with that.”
Now 37 and one of only six players to capture the career Grand Slam, McIlroy is one of those rare players who had it good both before and after LIV came along and disrupted the game.
He said he is not a decision-maker and, regardless of what the tour rolls out for 2028 and beyond, “I’ll continue to play my schedule, which is getting less and less as the years go on.”
He said the tour had to adapt to retain talent when LIV came along and grabbed Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, a five-time major champion who has since returned to the PGA Tour.
Now, their futures are in flux and McIlroy views the tour he never left in a different light.
“Now that LIV looks like it’s less of a threat," he said, “I think the old ways of the PGA Tour weren’t actually that bad.”
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