{"id":580130,"date":"2026-05-12T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580130\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:46:08","slug":"rory-mcilroy-claims-he-knew-liv-was-in-trouble-and-breakaway-tour-was-always-a-risk-rory-mcilroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580130\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy claims he knew LIV was in trouble and breakaway tour was always a \u2018risk\u2019 | Rory McIlroy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy has revealed he heard rumblings of impending trouble for LIV Golf weeks before Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) confirmed it would withdraw funding for the circuit<\/a>. The Masters champion believes the PIF approach highlights the danger of sport becoming reliant on anything that can be affected by world affairs.<\/p>\n

LIV is engaged in a race against time to survive with PIF, which has bestowed more than $5bn (\u00a33.7bn) on the tour, to exit at the end of 2026. News of that, which emerged in the immediate aftermath of McIlroy\u2019s successful defence<\/a> at Augusta National last month, shocked even those within LIV but not the Northern Irishman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always a possibility,\u201d said McIlroy. \u201cI feel like a lot of us, including me, we almost knew before the [LIV] players did that this was going to happen. I was hearing about this back in March, April time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have friends over there. One of my best friends, Ricky, caddies for Tom McKibbin. I would talk to him all the time about what was going on. I was saying to Ricky: \u2018Have you guys heard any of this stuff?\u2019 He was like: \u2018No, everything seems OK over here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just feels like the rug was pulled from under their feet and everyone was sort of blindsided by it. That\u2019s the risk that those guys chose to take. There\u2019s a lot of uncertainty in the air right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy offered a laugh and an admission of \u201cI\u2019m glad I was wrong\u201d after taking a previous position of wanting the PGA Tour to accept funding from Saudi Arabia. Instead, it is LIV staring at a bleak future in a scenario at least partly linked to the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy will return to action at the US PGA Championship on Thursday. Photograph: Eston Parker\/ISI Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone knows, with everything that\u2019s happening in the Middle East, that had a lot to do [with it],\u201d McIlroy added. \u201cBut whenever you have funding tied so much to the geopolitical landscape in the world, that\u2019s a tricky road to navigate. Their priorities shifted, and that leaves LIV in a pretty precarious spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy has made just one start after the Masters, last week in Charlotte, after skipping a planned appearance in the PGA Tour\u2019s earlier stop at Doral. In the same week, McIlroy was namechecked by Donald Trump while at a dinner to mark King Charles\u2019s visit to the United States. McIlroy returns to action at the second major of the year, the US PGA Championship, at Aronimink from Thursday,having spent five hours scouting the venue last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was tentatively planning to play Doral, then I got invited to that White House state dinner on a Tuesday night, which I thought was a wonderful opportunity,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cTo go down to Doral and then fly up to DC for that and then fly back down \u2026 if I wasn\u2019t giving my 100% attention to the tournament, then there\u2019s no reason to play it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do the state dinner, and if I was going to do that, it was probably better that I take that week to practise and prepare, come up here and see the golf course, and then go into Quail Hollow feeling more ready to play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy has revealed he heard rumblings of impending trouble for LIV Golf weeks before Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-580130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}