PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Rory McIlroy has been one of the most outspoken golfers over the last three years while the ongoing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf continues.
While he is no longer part of the PGA Tour’s board, McIlroy didn’t shy away from providing his opinion on a meeting that is set to take place Monday in Ponte Vedra between the player directors of the PGA Tour and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
The meeting, first reported by Golfweek, was confirmed by Patrick Cantlay Sunday at TPC Sawgrass. Cantlay is one of the player directors set to attend. He characterized it, according to Sports Illustrated, as "more of meet-and-greet" than anything of substance.
However, this is the first time that representatives from the PIF and the Strategic Sports Group — a recent investor in the new for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises — will be getting together with the PGA Tour.
McIlroy has been banging the drum for unity amongst golf’s stakeholders and wants the best to get together and play more often. This kind of meeting, McIlroy said at The Players Championship, “should have happened months ago.”
“I’m glad that it’s happening. Hopefully that progresses conversations and gets us closer to a solution,” McIlroy said.
McIlroy has never been afraid to speak his mind on LIV and its leader, Greg Norman. When he won the 2022 RBC Canadian Open for his 21st PGA Tour title, he said, pointedly, that it was "one more than someone else," a shot at Norman’s 20 PGA Tour titles.
McIlroy has met with Al-Rumayyan before and said Sunday that the people who have been representing the governor in LIV have let him down.
"The people that have represented him in LIV I think have done him a disservice, so Norman and those guys," McIlroy said. "I see the two entities, and […] I actually think there's a really big disconnect between PIF and LIV. I think you got PIF over here and LIV are sort of over here doing their own thing."
McIlroy said the PIF is big on team golf and if he had it his way, there would be individual golf competitions and also team golf as a periphery of that. PIF is involved with other sports, but golf is the only one that they have provided a full-on disruption.
McIlroy believes Al-Rumayyan has a desire to be involved in golf in a productive way.
“The closer that we can get to Yasir, PIF and hopefully finalize that investment, I think that will be a really good thing,” he said.
McIlroy finished at 9-under for the week after an even-par 72 Sunday. He made 26 birdies for the week, the second-most in the history of The Players Championship. He also, however, made 11 bogeys and three double bogeys.
