Four-time Major winner Rory McIlory has broken his silence on the shock decision by PGA Tour and DP World Tour to join forces with Saudi Arabian-backed circuit and says he still HATES LIV Golf.
The Irishman, speaking ahead of the defence of his Canadian Open title which gets under way on Thursday, says it is NOT a merger, as he admitted to having 'mixed emotions’. And he was at pains to point out that PGA will continue to call the shots. And while it means pending litigation between the tours will be halted and they will move forward as part of the same enterprise, McIlroy said there must still be consequences for LIV Golf rebels.
The one-time warring fractions will come together at the US Open in LA next week for the first time since the merger was announced and 2014 Open champion McIlroy said: “The future of the PGA looks brighter as an entity. There still has to be consequences. We can’t just welcome those who walked away back in and pretend nothing happened. That won’t happen. I still hate LIV. I hope it goes away and fully expect it does. But at the end of the day money talks and you'd rather have them as a partner.
"Ultimately when I try to remove myself from the situation it will be good for the game of golf. It unifies it and secures its financial situation. There’s mixed emotions. I don’t know all the intricacies of what’s going on. There’s a lot of things to be thrashed out but at least it means the litigation goes away which has been a massive burden for everyone involved in the Tour.
“I got a text message on Monday night from Jimmy Dunne asking if he could call me. He took me through the deal, the structure of the deal. I learned about it pretty much the same time as everyone else did. It was a surprise. I knew discussions were going on in the background but didn’t expect it to go through as quickly as it did.
“We can start to work toward some sort of way of unifying the game at elite level. The one thing I think was misconstrued was the headlines were PGA Tour merges with LIV. I was frustrated at that. All I’ve wanted to do is protect the future of the PGA Tour and what it stands for and I hope this does that. The headlines were merges with LIV but if you look at how it’s structured this company sits above that. The PGA Tour have control of everything. Whether you like it or not PIF is going to invest money in golf but PGA controls how that is spent."
