Though he’s not completely full of regret, Rory McIlroy thinks he took things a bit too far when it came to the PGA Tour’s battle against Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and LIV Golf.
McIlroy, speaking ahead of the RBC Canadian Open this week in Ontario, said he wishes he handled things differently in recent years.
“In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t have gotten involved — or not hadn’t have gotten involved, hadn’t have gotten as deeply involved in it, and I’ve articulated that,” McIlroy said.
“Hindsight’s always 20/20, but in hindsight, I wish I hadn’t have gotten as deeply involved as I have.”
When LIV Golf first popped up, McIlroy quickly became the face of the Tour as the two sides started fighting. He was the strongest advocate for the Tour, and then said he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” after Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s surprise merger announcement almost exactly a year ago.
Since then, McIlroy has changed his stance drastically. He no longer seems to care who is playing where. He instead just wants the sport unified again.
McIlroy resigned from his seat on the Tour’s policy board last fall, but then tried to rejoin and take Webb Simpson’s spot earlier this year before internal backlash stopped that from happening. He is still on the negotiating committee that is tasked with working with the PIF to figure out how to bring the Tour and LIV Golf together. It’s unclear where those negotiations stand.
“I hold no grudge, I hold no resentment over the guys that chose to go and play on LIV,” McIlroy said. “Everyone’s got their own decisions to make and everyone has the right to make those decisions. My whole thing is I’m just disappointed to what it’s done to, not just the game of golf, the game of golf will be fine, but men’s professional golf and this sort of divide we have at the minute. Hopefully we’re on a path to sorting that out and getting that to come back together.”
McIlroy has won twice on Tour so far this season, including earlier this month at the Wells Fargo Championship. He finished T12 at the PGA Championship, which came shortly after he filed for divorce from his wife, Erica. McIlroy, despite currently sitting at No. 3 in the Official World Golf Rankings, has not won a major championship in a decade.
After taking a week off after the major, McIlroy is now going to play four straight weeks through the U.S. Open and the Travelers Championship. McIlroy will tee off with Canadians Taylor Pendrith and Nick Taylor in the first two rounds this week at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club.
“I’m ready to go, but, yeah, it’s been a busy stretch and I’m sort of easing my way back into it,” McIlroy said. “I probably hit a grand total of probably 150 balls last week. So, not that I feel rusty, I feel like I’ve played enough golf to keep myself taken over, but, yeah, last week was a good week to just reset and sort of start again.”