Rory McIlroy’s former agent Chubby Chandler been in the headlines recently offering his views on everything from the four-time Major winner’s chances of joining LIV Golf to the ongoing discussions between the PGA Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) behind the circuit.
Now, he has once turned his again turned his attention to the PGA Tour and his former client, claiming LIV Golf has had a profound impact on the circuit and that events since the latter's emergence have left McIlroy "disinterested."
On the issue of the state of the PGA Tour, Chandler claimed a string of big-name departures to LIV Golf haven't been adequately replaced, which has led to a knock-on effect. Speaking in association with BetIdeas, he explained: “The money the PGA Tour gets from TV fees is based on weight of field from the world rankings. Well their weighted field has gone up because they got rid of 20 players, it’s not gone down it’s gone up.
“All those LIV players have been replaced by people, Jimmy No-names. The PGA Tour has still got all these guys in the world rankings, but they’ve got rid of Cam Smith, Louis Ooosthuizen and the non-Americans so for them it has been stronger.
“How can you have that? You can’t have world rankings that favour the Americans, which is what it has done the last few years."
Chandler also turned his attention to McIlroy, who famously stood up for the PGA Tour following the emergence of LIV Golf. That's a situation that Chandler feels has ultimately had an adverse effect on his game, particularly after talks opened between the PGA Tour and the PIF.
He said: "Rory looks disinterested to me. He doesn’t look sharp. It looks to me at the moment that last year took an awful lot out of him and suddenly he got let down and he’s finding it hard to get back up again. That’s what it looks like to me."
McIlroy has a busy schedule as he prepares for his latest assault on The Masters in his bid to claim the Green Jacket for the first time, but so far this year, his PGA Tour form has been patchy. Still, Chandler thinks he saw some of the old McIlroy in the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, but only fleetingly.
He explained: “There is no spark in his eyes, no twinkle. He had about an hour and a half on the Saturday afternoon where he was like the old Rory, but you know that bouncy step he has when he’s playing well, it’s not there and I’m sure that year out of his life, or 18 months, took its toll.”
The strain of McIlroy juggling politics with his playing commitments was laid bare in the second season of Netflix docuseries Full Swing and Chandler can’t understand how he didn’t notice the effect it was having on him.
He continued: “Rory was front and center of Full Swing. I don’t see how he couldn’t see that was happening to him. Either he was getting well paid for it or he liked seeing his quotes up in lights all the time because you’d never have got Nicklaus or Tiger doing it.
“They would never have sacrificed a year of their lives, he’s playing not as well as they can do, for the sake of fighting for the PGA Tour - and he’s not even American.”
This week, Rory McIlroy is in The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. He is in a group with Viktor Hovland and Jordan Spieth in the opening two rounds, with a tee time of 8.35am ET (12.35pm GMT).
