The most unpalatable and unlikely scenario could be a necessary one. Rory McIlroy to LIV has been rumoured, slapped down, rumoured and slapped down. Yet as the PGA Tour procrastinates over completion of a deal with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, and even the formal involvement of McIlroy himself, one wonders if it may take something nuclear to allow golf to wake up to the haplessness of its present, fractured state. Should McIlroy sign for golf’s rebel tour the establishment would be sent into a level of frenzy so serious that collaboration between the PGA Tour, LIV and the PIF would surely transpire in a heartbeat.
There is no suggestion this will happen. Still, Greg Norman knew precisely what he was doing in recent days. “If Rory was willing to sit down and have a conversation with us, would we be happy to sit down with him?” Norman said. “100%.” McIlroy is not actually the PGA Tour’s main concern. The live prospect of LIV continuing a talent drain on established tours into 2025 should be the prime cause for fear. While not McIlroy, it could be Viktor Hovland. If not Hovland, it could be Tommy Fleetwood. The PGA Tour and its marquee events are being materially harmed by golf’s lack of compatibility. This will continue to be the case while the PGA Tour wanders aimlessly on one path and LIV confidently on another.
A Monday morning conference call will determine whether or not McIlroy will make a return to the PGA Tour’s policy board and become a director of the recently established PGA Tour Enterprises. This vote should have taken place on Wednesday. It is a telling indicator of the corporate muddle that McIlroy – not the most famous individual in golf but surely the most influential – was not immediately welcomed with open arms. It is faintly ludicrous that the world No 2 and a proper needle-mover in golf has to hang around and audition for acceptance. The 34-year-old has connections across business and golf that should render a role for him a complete no-brainer. Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, will take McIlroy’s call; a courtesy unlikely to given to others not named Tiger Woods.
The only assumption to be drawn from the needless delay is that there are those who are hardly impressed by McIlroy stepping back into prominence. The Northern Irishman has been candid about his desire for a global game, where the best play the best in all corners of the globe. If top-level golf was created today, this is precisely the model that would be followed. Yet for too long – and still now – people involved in the PGA Tour are obsessed only by the PGA Tour. It is an insular standpoint which, combined with Saudi riches, has left the organisation forced into a commercial partnership with a group of US-based sports owners to keep heads above water. Even with that agreement in place the PGA Tour’s medium-term outlook, with $20m events not nearly enough people care about, isn’t positive.
As the sport loses eyeballs, players have become overly empowered. Golfers would never ask commercial types to line up putts for them but seem to believe they are qualified to make business calls. This is the reason a group of directors did not instantly tick a box and return McIlroy to the fold. Among them is Patrick Cantlay. McIlroy has already been plain about the fact he and the world No 8 “see the world quite differently”. Which is fine. In fact, it is perhaps essential in a boardroom.
Nobody knows precisely what Cantlay wants because he has passed up countless opportunities to articulate it. At Sawgrass, immediately before he joined a trip to the Bahamas to meet Rumayyan, Cantlay was so vague in response to questions about his sport’s future that it was tricky to keep eyes open while listening. A day after McIlroy’s potential reappearance was reported, Cantlay was on the interview schedule at the Zurich Classic. By total coincidence, Cantlay’s practice schedule meant he was not able to appear for questioning.
Woods is intriguing in this situation. It is only fair to believe fellow professionals who state the 15-time major winner takes his board position seriously, despite this being an individual who has had others basically wiping his backside since he shot to worldwide fame. Woods had no previous requirement to study spreadsheets. Despite not being a board member at the time, Woods was upset at having no prior knowledge of the 6 June framework agreement announced between the PGA Tour and PIF. This resentment seems to have lingered. If anyone had cause for anger, it was McIlroy; he earlier did so much of the PGA Tour’s public bidding against LIV. Rather than sulk, McIlroy wants to be a force for greater good.
JUST A SMALL TOWN GIRL pic.twitter.com/NefSbCQjAk
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 29, 2024
The bigger issue is that Woods’s entire legacy is wrapped up in the PGA Tour. He needs the PGA Tour, above or even at the cost of all else, to thrive and prosper. If the shape of elite golf changes it would only be natural for Woods to ponder how his achievements may be viewed decades from now. Like Cantlay, though, Woods has been hopelessly opaque when placed behind a microphone.
There are other reasons for McIlroy to be involved. If the PGA Tour wants to present itself as an upwardly mobile organisation, it surely cannot operate without European presence in its decision making. There is scepticism about the value of a strategic alliance between the PGA and DP World Tour; that is only enhanced by such a US-centric boardroom.
A conference call on Monday will determine the next step. Shunning McIlroy would represent an epic embarrassment. Whether the four-time major winner is back to front and centre, this must also be the trigger for others on the PGA Tour to finally display the courage of their convictions. Minus McIlroy, golf is sleepwalking.
