Rory McIlroy: LIV Golf threat 'has benefited everyone'

Rory McIlroy has spent the past year as the leading voice among the players in the PGA Tour's battle against the upstart LIV Golf League.

He's also the first one to admit the threat from its Saudi-backed rival forced the PGA Tour to aggressively address its "antiquated system" in a way that benefits players on all of the top tours.

McIlroy made the comments on Tuesday ahead of his 13th start at The Players Championship, which he won in 2019. The remarks came after the tour's annual players meeting, which followed last week's announcement that 2024 will include eight limited field, no-cut events.

This year's designated events feature $20 million purses, while The Players was increased to $25 million. McIlroy said "a lot" of the changes have been stirred by the threat of LIV Golf.

"I'm not going to sit here and lie; I think the emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf," the 33-year-old from Northern Ireland said. "I think when you've been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there's not a lot of incentive to innovate.

"This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA Tour and what was quite, I would say, an antiquated system is being revamped to try to mirror where we're at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape. The PGA Tour isn't just competing with LIV Golf or other sports. It's competing with Instagram and TikTok and everything else that's trying to take eyeballs away from the PGA Tour as a product."

World No. 1 Jon Rahm echoed McIlroy's thoughts about the PGA Tour alterations.

"Without LIV Golf, this wouldn't have happened. So to an extent, like I've said before, we should be thankful this threat has made the PGA TOUR want to change things," Rahm, a 28-year-old from Spain, said. "I think I said it last week, as well; I wish it didn't come to the PGA TOUR being, you know, under fire from somebody else to make those changes and make things better for the players, but I guess it is what we needed. So, yeah, it is because of LIV Golf, otherwise we wouldn't have seen any of this."

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan acknowledged Tuesday that it is "awkward" not to have Australian Cameron Smith in this week's field, the defending Players champion who now lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, the site of The Players. In fact, four players who finished in the top six last year have since joined LIV Golf.

"Would it be better if the defending champion was here this week? Absolutely," McIlroy said. "But he made a decision that he felt was the best thing for him, and he knew that decision was going to come with consequences. And one of the consequences is right now not being able to play on the PGA Tour."

He added that LIV has "definitely had a massive impact on the game." Beyond the noticeable players missing from the PGA Tour's "fifth major" this week, the McIlroy previously admitted to fractured relationships with longtime European Ryder Cup teammates, including Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood.

McIlroy also has spent countless hours working as an advocate for the players on the policy board. He said Tuesday that an initial plan during a meeting in Delaware last August called for a schedule featuring 14 designated events.

McIlroy said that plan would have been "self-serving for the 20 players in that room." The plan announced last week trims that to eight events, with the intention being to spread them out to encourage the top players to enter a handful of full-field events to keep their games sharp.

It also includes "enough jeopardy," as McIlroy said, where even the top players must continue to secure their spots into those designated events.

"It's trying to create the best schedule that guarantees that the top players play in the big events," he said. "But also that it can sort of guarantee the participation in a handful of the full-field events as well. So I think there's a pretty good balance to it."

After a seven-hour meeting with the Tour Policy Board last week, the tour presented a pared-down version of the plan during the Tuesday player meeting.

"I think it was good for them to see that and to see what the thinking is behind what we're really trying to do here," McIlroy said. "I think the temperature in the room was nowhere near as hot as I anticipated it to be once the information was sort of laid out."

While serving and as the de facto voice of the PGA Tour players in the ongoing public relations battle with LIV Golf, McIlroy has managed to stay focused on his game. He won three times in a seven-event span to regain the No. 1 world ranking.

That quickly was reclaimed by Scottie Scheffler and then Rahm, with McIlroy slipping to No. 3 entering this week. He's coming off a tie for second last week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and is hopeful that he can enjoy a bit more balance in his life now that the plan for 2024 has been made public.

"When I went on the board of the PGA Tour, I didn't imagine it would take up this much time. But I think it's been important work, and I'm proud of the steps that we and the PGA Tour have made to try to make everything better for the membership and try to stem the flow of players that have went to LIV," he said.

"But yeah, hopefully with these new changes that have been announced, hopefully the majority of my time will be spent on concentrating on getting ready for golf tournaments and trying to be the best player that I can be.

"It might give me a bit more free time to do other things that I enjoy, as well."