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Rory McIlroy feels 'fortunate' that LIV wasn't around when he turned pro

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Alex Miceli | Last updated Feb 3, 2025 10:11 PM ET

If the LIV Golf League were around when Rory McIlroy entered the professional game in 2007, he might have forgone the traditional DP World Tour and PGA Tour route for the upstart league.

With his 27^th win on the PGA Tour Sunday at Pebble Beach and 42 worldwide victories, the 35-year-old from Holywood, Northern Ireland, has no interest today in a LIV career. Still, as he talked about advising his Holywood Golf Club friend Tom McKibbin, McIlroy reflected on his early days as a professional.

“I'm so glad that LIV wasn't around when I was that age,” McIlroy said. “Because to me, all I want to do was get into the top 50 in the world, play the majors, like, try to become one of the best players in the world. I didn't care how much money I had at that point, and I was just getting starts on the PGA Tour and the European tour, and that was enough for me.”

McIlroy talked with his fellow club member McKibbin a lot before and after the 22-year-old Ulsterman decided to make the leap to join LIV on Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team.

In all the discussions McIlroy has had with McKibbin, he has only provided perspective from a position of knowledge.

Ultimately, McKibbin was as informed as anyone before he made the decision.

“I think I'm close enough to what's going on in the game that I could give him a good understanding of where everything might shake out in the next year or two,” McIlroy said of the type of advice he provided. “So, all I could really do is give him that information, and then at the end of the day he was always going to make his own his own choice and his own decision.”

Ultimately, McKibbin took the money, which is not a slight, but a factual reality.

It’s easy to understand why, but it portends a more significant issue in the game of golf — specifically how money, the increasing amount of it, either is or rapidly will be an issue that will be difficult to control.

“Yes, yes. It is, in a way, it's, a little bit like NIL now in college sports, where guys will just jump from one team to another, whoever will pay them the most,” McIlroy said of how it’s unfortunate that money is driving career decisions.”

McIlroy doesn’t begrudge McKibbin, who makes his LIV debut this week in Saudi Arabia.

McIlroy may know better than anyone about McKibbin’s wants and desires.

At the same time, McIlroy knows how hard it must have been to have millions of dollars thrown at you to play a game you love and, at the same time, take the burden off your shoulders of needing to make a living.

“If I were 21 years old or 22 in Tom's position, maybe I would have made a different choice as well,” McIlroy said. “But thankfully, that choice wasn't an option at that point. And again, I feel fortunate that it wasn't.”

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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