“It’s not as if they made any \u200dhuge signings this year, is it?” McIlroy told The Telegraph of London.<\/p>\n
“They haven’t signed anyone \u200bwho moves the needle, and I don’t think they will. I mean, they could re-sign \u2060Bryson (DeChambeau) for hundreds of millions of dollars, but even if they do, it doesn’t change their product, does it? They’ll just be paying for the exact same thing.”<\/p>\n
McIlroy’s remarks were his first public comments since former LIV Golf team captain Brooks Koepka announced \u200chis return to \u200bthe PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
“This is great as it gets Brooks back to \u200dwhere he belongs,” McIlroy said of the five-time major champion. “He is one of the best players in the world, and anything that makes the traditional tours stronger is a good thing in my book.”<\/p>\n
Under the PGA Tour’s new Returning Member Program, LIV Golf participants DeChambeau, Jon \u200bRahm and Australian Cameron Smith are also eligible \u200cto come back, but the three have said they are staying with the Saudi-backed circuit as it \u200benters its fifth season.<\/p>\n
LIV Golf’s biggest signing this offseason was Belgium’s Thomas Detry, who recorded \u200dhis lone PGA Tour win at the WM Phoenix Open last February.<\/p>\n
Other signings include 23-year-old Australian left-hander Elvis Smylie, who has two professional wins to his name – the 2024 WA Open and the 2024 Australian PGA Championship.<\/p>\n
McIlroy speculated that LIV Golf was headed \u200btowards serious \u200bfinancial obligations.<\/p>\n
“A lot of these \u200bguys’ contracts are up,” the Northern Irishman \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
“They’re going to ask for the same number or an even bigger number. LIV have spent $5 billion or $6 billion, and they’re going to have to spend another five or six just to maintain where they are.<\/p>\n
“Look, I’m way more comfortable being on the PGA Tour side than on their side, but who knows what will happen.<\/p>\n
“As ever time will \u200dtell with all this, but I’m so happy to be \u200bwith the PGA Tour.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“It’s not as if they made any \u200dhuge signings this year, is it?” McIlroy told The Telegraph of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-415889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}