Rory McIlroy spoke some harsh truths last week in his return to the PGA Tour, among them his belief that the professional schedule is too long, leading to consumer fatigue.
Then he went out and did his best to put all the negative chatter in the background, delivering what the PGA Tour and golf fans in general have craved, a compelling tournament on a great venue, the original idea behind the formation of the signature events.
McIlroy’s final-round 66—which included a towering, 330-yard drive at the par-5 14th hole that set up an eagle—led to his first victory of 2025 and the 27th of his PGA Tour career.
It’s been 20 years since anyone reached that number, back when Phil Mickelson won the 2005 PGA Championship.
Mickelson has 45 victories to rank tied for eighth all-time with Walter Hagen. McIlroy might not reach that number, but he seems a lock to get to 30—a number that in this era might be unreachable by anyone else.
Those are the types of things that the masses prefer to discuss and debate.
Not endless rounds plagued by slow play, the ongoing spat between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the perceived television shortcomings and even the notion that players need to be more “entertainer” as well as golfer.
It was Scottie Scheffler who earlier in the week hit the hard note on what ultimately McIlroy achieved on Sunday.
“At the end of the day I think what people like is competition,” said Scheffler, who tied for ninth in his season debut after returning from injury. “I think the more we can stop talking about all the other b.s. that’s going on in the game of golf. I mean, we’re playing Pebble Beach this week and I’m sure a lot of the talking points in here are about pace of play and TGL and all this other stuff and we’re playing Pebble Beach this week, one of the most beautiful, iconic golf courses in the world.”
The venue delivered. Saturday produced a raw, windy day that saw challenging conditions. On Sunday, the wind died down and the weather warmed. So did the golf, making that the story for one of the rare times this year.
McIlroy had openly questioned the product leading into the event. The notion is nothing new. There has long been a sense that golf does not give its fans a chance to miss it. There are tournaments around the world nearly every week of the year. One season bleeds into the next.
“I think 47 or 50 tournaments a year is definitely too many,” McIlroy said.
As the game is searching for answers—about slow play, about shrinking TV ratings, about bringing the best players back together again with some sort of agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf—there still remain some big questions as to what responsibilities players have to make the product better.
Justin Thomas recently sent a letter on behalf of the Player Advisory Council (PAC) asking players to cooperate with the Tour’s television partners. There’s been a push to get players to understand their role as “entertainers.” And then there has been the Tour leaning into social influencers and the popularity of golf on YouTube.
“It’s a balance,” McIlroy said. “When we’re growing up dreaming of being professional golfers and trying to get the best out of ourselves, the last thing on our mind is being entertainers. We’re competitive people at the end of the day, we want to play against the best players in the world and we want to try to come out on top. I think that in itself should be entertaining to people, but I think in this day and age, it’s become a hobby to bash golf and where golf is and is it entertaining, is it not entertaining.
“I came out on the wrong side of it last year, but I would say the last round of the U.S. Open was pretty entertaining and that was pure competitive golf. I think the more we can get to scenarios like that, the better.”
McIlroy’s foil that day was Bryson DeChambeau, who won his second U.S. Open and saw his popularity rise considerably via top six finishes in three of the major championships.
But DeChambeau has leaned into the YouTube world, employing more than eight people to run a channel that has a considerable following.
This type of alternative golf product has gained a lot of traction—and yet it hasn’t exactly translated to immense LIV Golf viewership. Whether that begins to change is what many are waiting to see.
McIlroy said he has no issue with all of the other forms of golf—he’s an investor in TGL, after all—and acknowledged the popularity of the YouTube angle, calling it “entertainment adjacent ... those guys are killing it.”
“I think there’s space for all this,” he said. “But I can see where the golf consumer might get a little fatigued of everything that’s sort of available to them.”
His idea is not new: “Scale it back a little bit and maybe have a little more scarcity in some of the stuff that we do, like the NFL, might not be a bad thing.”
Such a notion was broached some two decades ago by Mickelson, who preferred to see fewer events, more money going to those events, and thereby more name or star players gathered at the same time.
LIV Golf was born—somewhat—out of that idea and that led the PGA Tour to its signature event model while still keeping a full schedule of tournaments.
It helps when the stars deliver.
“When I think about something that would be good for the game of golf, I think the more we can get back in the competition of things, I think that's what's best,” Scheffler said. “And when you have great players going at it, I think that that's what's interesting about sports. People tune into Tiger (Woods) because he's a great player.
“Tiger, his golf clubs always did his talking for him. He wasn’t going out and trying to do anything extra or try and put on a show. He was going out there to compete and play golf. It was electric at times because he would kind of go nuts when things would go well, but he also was really, really good at going crazy and getting right back into a different state of mind like that. That's something that I’m—I try not to get too amped or too come down, I try to stay as even keel.
“I never strived to be an entertainer. Always loved playing golf. That is what I love is to come out here and compete.”
LIV begins, Sergio gets PGA invite, major access still an issue
It is not official yet, but both Sergio Garcia and LIV Golf announced via their social media channels that the 2017 Masters winner had received an invitation to the PGA Championship in May at Quail Hollow.
Clearly, they’ve been given the news and why the PGA of America is holding back—the organization said it has yet to announce any field changes—is a bit odd.
Regardless of how it comes out—the PGA typically invites more than two dozen players as it has few direct exemption categories—this can be viewed as a form of validation for the LIV Golf League. Because outside of LIV Golf, Garcia, 45, has done little to warrant an invite.
He is ranked 461st in the Official World Golf Ranking and played in just four OWGR-rated events in 2024, missing the cut in two of them, including at the Masters.
But he qualified to play in the U.S. Open, where he tied for 12th at Pinehurst, and narrowly missed out on a spot to make into the British Open field at Royal Troon. His attempts to attempt qualifying since joining LIV Golf in 2022 undoubtedly make an impression.
And so, too, apparently did his play on LIV Golf last year, where he won the Andalucia event in Spain, had three other runner-up finishes and finished third in the seasonlong standings behind Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann.
Rahm is exempt via his U.S. Open (2021) and Masters (2023) victories and Niemann received an invite last year to the PGA. At 72nd in the OWGR and having competed in 10 non-LIV events, he’s almost certain to get another invite as the PGA traditionally has filled its field by inviting top 100 players not otherwise exempt.
As LIV Golf begins its 2025 season this week in Riyadh, the issue of major championship access remains a sticking point. The PGA, so far, remains the only major to appear to give credence to what a player does in the League. Last year, it gave several spots to LIV players, with everyone but Talor Gooch having outside bona-fides to justify their inclusion.
Gooch won LIV’s individual title in 2023 and had three victories. With no other worldwide success, the PGA clearly felt he deserved to be in its major championship based on how he performed in the controversial league.
LIV officials—who dropped their OWGR bid last spring—remain convinced that the majors will give them direct access via their seasonlong points list, tournament victories or a series of event finishes.
The Masters has already extended an invite for this year—as it did last year—to Niemann, but in doing so made no mention of his LIV success and seems content to not change any of its qualifying criteria.
The U.S. Open and British Open—which have yet to announce their exemption criteria for this year—also seem content with their qualifying process for non-exempt players. Mike Whan, the USGA CEO, said at last year’s U.S. Open when asked specifically about LIV access, “I think it's feasible. I don't think it's a huge pathway, but we do offer other pathways through DP (World Tour) or Korn Ferry (Tour), so we know that there's an option to get there.”
That would suggest a spot or two at most. The Open has also leaned into qualifying and its worldwide Open Qualifying Tournaments, some of which are open to LIV players. Former R&A CEO Martin Slumbers didn’t give a specific answer last year when asked about LIV access, answering rather cryptically.
“Will that evolve in the coming years? I think that depends on how the game evolves,” Slumbers said. “But we will continue to want the best players in the world to be able to get into the Open in an appropriate way.”
Even the PGA Championship has not given direct access, simply falling back on its plethora of exemptions it can offer.
The U.S. Open and the Open are expected to announce their qualifying criteria for 2025 in the early part of this month.
Range finders and the slow play issue
The PGA Tour said it would study the use of range finders—technically known as distance-measuring devices—in select events this year, most likely signature events, in order to test the idea as a way of combating slow play.
“We’re trying to find the right part of our schedule to give us the best sample,” said Gary Young, PGA Tour senior vice president of rules and competition, at Pebble Beach last week. “I think where we will see the biggest benefit to them are in some of our smaller fields where we’re in pairs, so we’d like to have a sample possibly of some of our signature events.”
While there is certainly a belief that they can help, it is unlikely to have any kind of huge impact to the point that it would result in a massive difference, one that would see 5½-hour rounds reduced in any significant way.
In 2017, the Tour experimented with DMDs in four Korn Ferry events and said it had “varying results” but not enough to allow the devices in all events. The Rules of Golf allow for DMDs but a local rule allows them to be prohibited, one that PGA Tour and most professional events utilize.
The PGA of America, however, began allowing them in 2021 and continues to do so at its tournaments, including the PGA. (The PGA of America also does not invoke the one-ball rule used in other pro competitions.) Nobody is suggesting that those rounds are appreciably faster.
For you and me, there are clearly advantages. We don’t have to waste time stepping off a yardage. There’s some immediate feedback which allows play to continue smoothy.
At the pro level, however, it is a far different story.
When the PGA announced its decision four years ago, there was mostly skepticism.
"On a normal hole, I'll still have the front (of the green) number, carry number, how many left or right and how many yards behind the pin,” said longtime caddie Paul Tesori, who now caddies for Tom Kim. “The last number we would get is the pin. What happens then if the range finder is more than one yard off? Now we will have to redo all our other numbers to fit what we are trying to do with the shot."
The overall belief is that a player typically wants multiple yardages, not just the one that the DMD identifies while looking for the pin. And there is a sense that the caddies who don’t do their homework—walking off yardages, getting numbers from obscure places on the course—would have an out over the more prepared caddie.
The PGA Tour sees a potential time-saving benefit when shots are well off the fairway and a number can be obtained more quickly by using the DMD. Still, the good caddies and diligent players are most likely going to want more information.
“We’re hearing it from our fans; they use them week in and week out,” Young said. “Why would you hold that back if it could possibly improve pace of play, speed of play? Why aren’t you doing it?”
The Tour will now try it out again. There’s nothing wrong with that, although it remains highly doubtful that this will lead to significant speeding up of play.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as With Rory McIlroy’s Win at Pebble Beach, the PGA Tour Delivered What Fans Crave.
