[PHOTO: Ross Parker/SNS Group]
Rory McIlroy can name-drop with any of the top golfers in the world. On Wednesday (US time) at Torrey Pines, in a pre-tournament media scrum held in the small scoring room that made the atmosphere something like a fireside chat, McIlroy revealed that on the day of the US presidential election last November, he played golf with Sheik Hamdan of Abu Dhabi. That fact was part of an answer he was giving about the involvement of US president Donald Trump in the PGA Tour’s negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls rival LIV Golf.
McIlroy wasn’t bragging, just anwering reporters’ queries. But it did shed more light on just how high the Ulsterman stands in the golf and political food chain. He has the attention of some of the most powerful people in the world, and he’s not afraid to offer an opinion or listen intently when the time is right.
In a 2020 interview, McIlroy was critical of Trump’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and said he regretted a 2017 round with Trump, after which he was heavily criticised on social media. “I haven’t done it since, out of choice,” McIlroy said of playing with Trump.
Times and circumstances change, and in a time when the PGA Tour and PIF are still negotiating a reunification of men’s professional golf, McIlroy has become more practical in recognising that the American president could have a significant influence on the potential for getting the deal done. Thus, they were reunited on the golf course again for a round in early January.
“It was great,” McIlroy said on Wednesday. “…I thought we had a good discussion. I learnt that he’s not a fan of the LIV format. I was like, ‘But you’ve hosted their events.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, but it doesn’t mean that I like it.’ So I think he’s on the [PGA] Tour’s side.”
The world No.3 golfer, making his first start in the Genesis this week since winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am two weeks ago, was pressed on what he thought Trump could accomplish by being involved. The candour of an answer that included the relative power of PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, with whom McIlroy played in last year’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, raised some eyebrows in the small room at Torrey. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Al-Rumayyan sits in the No.2 seat below ruler Mohammed bin Salman.
“So, the president, he can do a lot of things,” McIlroy said. “He has direct access to Yasir’s 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,” McIlroy continued. “He can be influential. He loves the game of golf… I was playing with Sheik Hamdan of Abu Dhabi the day when he got elected in November and the respect [Trump] has in the Middle East… I don’t think people appreciate how much respect that he has there. So I think whenever he says something, they listen and I think that’s a big thing.”
McIlroy was asked on Wednesday to address numerous issues regarding the future of the PGA Tour and LIV should a deal get done after negotiations began in June 2023.
He responded with a smile and “I hope not” about some potential cross-over play between LIV and the tour. McIlroy posited that maybe LIV would take up a smaller part of the schedule and maybe the tour could “cherry-pick” the league’s strongest events, such as the one being played in Adelaide this week. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he added. “As I keep saying, that’s above my pay grade.”
Maybe, though McIlroy certainly gave a glimpse of what he must be saying to the power brokers when he has their ears.
Of LIV’s team format that is played concurrently with an individual competition over 54 holes, McIlroy said, “I always felt like LIV’s best chance was to try to replicate their team championship for the teams to go head-to-head together, instead of they all just go out and play and they add their scores up at the end of the day. I don’t think that gets people going.
“But I think when the teams go head-to-head like they do in their team championship… I think that has a possibility of working. Instead of that, maybe being once a year and then… you could reduce the strokeplay events and do more of that a few times a year. Because especially if these guys [currently on LIV] are going to come back and play [the PGA Tour], there’s more of an opportunity for these teams to go more head-to-head because I think that makes for a more compelling product, at least in my eyes. I’m just one person.”
There has been much debate on how the pros who bolted for LIV should be “punished” for their defections. It’s a touchy subject, given that the PGA Tour and investors in the Strategic Sports Group have rewarded 200 tour players with $US1.5 billion in equity.
Should the returners from LIV get equity?
“If they still have status, sure, come back and play,” McIlroy said. “Like for us, they’ve all got equity in the tour. Having Bryson DeChambeau come back and play on this tour is good. I think he should have the ability to earn equity, but I think what we’ve been given is… for being loyal in some way and staying.”
Finally, in a question that seemed less angst-ridden than the others, McIlroy was asked if LIV returners should be considered for captaincy in the Ryder Cup. “I would have to be convinced,” he said. “It would take them treating it as [European captain] Luke Donald’s treated it for the past three years – that’s what it would take to convince me.”
