Rory McIlroy has taken a swipe at LIV Golf after the golfing league had its funding pulled.
The future of the Saudi-backed rebel league is in jeopardy after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund revealed last month that it intends to pull its funding at the end of the year.
With more than €4.5billion invested in the league, and with pros such as Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickleson leaving the PGA tour to join the league, news that the funding will be pulled has left people to wonder if the rebel golfers would return to the PGA tour.
Speaking following his back-to-back Masters win last month, Rory McIlroy, a long-time critic of LIV Golf, said that while the league may look for alternative funding, but isn’t against those who left the PGA tour returning if the league does fold.
‘I think everyone sort of knows my views on LIV and where it stands in the game of golf,’ Rory said at the Truist Championship in North Carolina. ‘I don’t think I need to rehash any of that. It’s never been for me.’
‘They’re going to go and try and find alternative investment, whatever that may look like,’ he continued. ‘But when one of the wealthiest sovereign wealth funds in the world thinks that you’re too expensive for them, that sort of says something.’
As for whether those in the renegade league will return to the PGA tour, Rory said that while he wouldn’t see them back, ‘it’s a question of if they want to come back.
‘I think there’s going to be a lot of bridges to cross to get there,’ he said. ‘I think Brian Rolapp [PGA tour exec] said anything that makes this Tour stronger, anything that makes the DP World Tour stronger, I think everyone should be open to that. That’s just good business practice.
‘I’m not going to judge anyone for not wanting to play on the PGA Tour,’ he continued, before adding: ‘if you want to be the most competitive golfer you can be, this is the place to be. And if you don’t want to play here, I think that says something about you.’
Rory recently named his ‘Mount Rushmore’ of golf courses on the New Heights podcast with the Kelce Brothers — and named a course in his native Co Down.
