Rory McIlroy makes big revelation on LIV Golf as he credits them for making him “earn more”
Rory McIlroy was one of the most ardent supporters of the PGA Tour during the first couple of years of the PGA versus LIV Golf split in professional golf. For years, he spoke out against them and was not happy with golfers who went to the tour.
He gradually softened his tone and adopted a much more open stance, but now he’s taking it a step further. Ahead of the Genesis Invitational, he admitted that he’s benefited from LIV Golf directly.
McIlroy said:
“I earn more money now than I did in 2019, and if LIV hadn’t come around, I don’t know if I’d be able to say that… I didn’t feel that way initially because of the fracture, it wasn’t good for the game. It wasn’t good for the overall game, it wasn’t good for either tour I didn’t think.”
He went on to say that it’s been a boon for the Major championships since it’s the only place LIV and PGA golfers can really compete against one another consistently.
He admitted that he was “opposed to a lot” of LIV, but also said:
“When you sort of remove yourself from it and look at the overall picture, we’ve all done better because of this. The players on the PGA Tour have more leverage than they ever had… but at the same time, I regret some of those decisions, too because it put the Tour in a place where they were stretched financially…”
Just after the USA’s presidential election last November, Rory McIlroy expressed hope that Donald Trump being in office might speed things up as it pertained to the PGA x PIF merger.
Now, he’s praising Trump again for helping move things along. Tiger Woods and a cohort of PGA Tour policymakers went to the White House to ask the president for help.
McIlroy said via Irish Star:
“The President, he can do a lot of things. He has direct access to Yasir’s [Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the PIF] boss – not many people have that. Not many people can say, ‘I want you to get this deal done and by the way, I’m speaking to your boss, I’m going to tell him the same thing’. There’s a few things that he can do. He can be influential. He loves the game of golf.”
Rory McIlroy revealed that he was playing in the Middle East when Trump was elected and that the president has a lot of respect there and that could play a big role in the merger’s eventual resolution
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