Rory McIlroy has warned that the “false economy” created by the threat of LIV Golf may now be putting some well-established PGA Tour events at risk. The world No 2 and current Masters champion said he felt people had lost sight of how good the tour was before it too had a huge cash injection.
When the Saudi breakaway started luring away some of the top talent on multimillion-dollar contracts during the early years, the PGA Tour’s response was to restructure, creating eight signature events each with smaller fields and prize funds of $20m (£15m), plus generating a number of associated financial benefits. The threat of LIV has now subsided with its future in doubt after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – which had pumped $5bn into the venture – announced it would stop financing it at the end of the year.
“It’s funny as they’ve done all this work [and] you start to realise that the way the tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,” said the Northern Irishman ahead of the US Open at Shinnecock Hills. “It was a pretty good structure, and everything sort of worked pretty well. LIV created this false economy where we had to up prize funds and had to cut fields and try to support the top players.”
McIlroy expressed concern that events like the Canadian Open could be relegated to a second-tier status. “An event like last week, the Canadian Open, potentially going to one of these Track 2s. Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry [second-tier] event. I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those. I just think there’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30m, so that’s the tough thing.”
McIlroy will begin his bid for a second US Open title alongside Ryder Cup teammates Tommy Fleetwood and Ludvig Åberg at 7.52am local time (12.52pm BST) on Thursday. The event provides the world number one Scottie Scheffler with his first shot at completing the career grand slam, while golf’s newest major champion, Wolverhampton’s Aaron Rai, is also in the field.
