Rory McIlroy performed a spherical with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan on the 2024 Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship.
David Cannon/Getty Photos
The PGA Tour/PIF/LIV Golf saga appeared to take a constructive flip finally week’s Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks Championship, the place main stakeholders from each side performed alongside one another on the dwelling of golf.
Was it an indication that the long-running negotiations would quickly come to an finish and professional golf’s greatest gamers would reunite and tee it up collectively as soon as once more?
Not so quick, says Rory McIlroy.
McIlroy is an on-again, off-again participant within the negotiations between the Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund (PIF), which runs LIV Golf, after initially being a vocal critic of LIV Golf and its financiers.
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On the Dunhill Hyperlinks, which encompasses a concurrent pro-am, McIlroy performed rounds with each PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
The four-time champion didn’t say a lot concerning the curious pairings through the event, which is contested yearly at St. Andrews’ Outdated Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.
However following the event, The Scotsman caught up with McIlroy to get his ideas on the matter.
Within the interview, McIlroy did specific confidence within the Tour and PIF coming to an settlement on a PIF funding in PGA Tour Enterprises quickly. However he additionally sowed doubt that any potential merger between the Tour and LIV Golf was imminent.
“I believe by yr’s finish, whether or not the Public Funding Fund will spend money on PGA Tour Enterprises… that doesn’t clear up the issue of the place we discover ourselves in golf, the schedule and the whole lot,” McIlroy advised The Scotsman.
He went on to elucidate that he thinks the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, and the star gamers break up between them, will proceed on their very own paths for years, with solely occasional occasions that includes gamers from each excursions competing in opposition to one another.
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“I believe all excursions are going to maintain trucking alongside and doing their very own factor for the foreseeable future and I believe the perfect factor we will perhaps hope for is a little bit of crossover between them,” McIlroy stated. “Then perhaps whereas that’s taking place over that time period, whether or not it’s one yr, two years, three years, simply attempting to determine the remaining.”
McIlroy additionally revealed that whereas there’s constructive momentum towards a deal on each side, one factor specifically is getting in the best way of an settlement: attorneys.
“I believe there’s a willingness there from all events to attempt to get it to occur however you’ve obtained tons of attorneys in the course of it,” McIlroy claimed.
So far as hypothesis by some that the Alfred Dunhill Hyperlinks pairings would permit McIlroy, Monahan and Al-Rumayyan to make headway on the negotiations, McIlroy dismissed that concept as nicely.
“Yeah, it was good to spend a while with all of them and type of speak a bit bit concerning the scenario, the goings on within the recreation,” McIlroy stated, “However, in equity, it in all probability wasn’t as a lot discuss it as you’d have thought.”
Each excursions are certainly heading into 2025 on their very own, with each having launched conflicting schedules.
The first “crossover” occasion between PGA Tour and LIV gamers goes down this December, when McIlroy and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will tackle American LIV stars Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a made-for-TV match in Las Vegas.
You possibly can learn The Scotsman’s full interview with McIlroy right here.
