{"id":645480,"date":"2026-06-18T15:08:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/645480\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:08:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:08:23","slug":"mcilroy-says-pga-tour-pre-liv-was-actually-pretty-good-and-worries-about-future-of-2nd-tier-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/645480\/","title":{"rendered":"McIlroy Says PGA Tour Pre-LIV Was \u2018Actually Pretty Good\u2019 And Worries About Future Of 2nd-Tier Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Now that\u00a0LIV Golf is flailing<\/a>\u00a0and the sport has pulled itself out of what once felt like a day-to-day crisis cycle, Rory McIlroy sees the future \u2014 and the past \u2014 a little differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start to realize that the way the tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,\u201d McIlroy said Tuesday, as he prepared for the\u00a0U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The six-time major champion, once seen as the frontline defender of the PGA Tour when it was fighting to rebuild itself in the wake of the LIV startup, is now waiting to see what the tour does next.<\/p>\n

He recognizes that LIV\u2019s injection of billions into the sport \u201ccreated a false economy\u201d that forced the tour to respond. Though it has made the rich richer with the creation of \u201csignature\u201d events with $20 million purses, McIlroy isn\u2019t so sure that \u2014 or whatever comes next \u2014 is better than what came before it.<\/p>\n

One potential casualty of the shift: events like last week\u2019s Canadian Open \u2014 a tournament with a national title on the line that McIlroy has won twice in the past seven years but skipped this year. It has been relegated to second-class status on the current schedule and could fall even further if it ends up part of what is being called \u201cTrack 2\u201d in the tour\u2019s next model, expected to kick off in 2028.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s\u00a0Canadian Open, won by 40th-ranked Bud Cauley<\/a>, featured four players in the top 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrack 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry event,\u201d McIlroy said of what essentially is the tour\u2019s current minor league. \u201cThat\u2019s what Track 2 is going to be. So I don\u2019t think the Canadian Open should be one of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anything McIlroy says carries more weight, in part because of his resume and in part because when LIV started up, he was its biggest critic among the players.<\/p>\n

As time passed, McIlroy grew weary of being a frontman and eventually settled into the idea that, while he preferred the PGA Tour and its connection to tradition and history, others made their decisions and that didn\u2019t mean they couldn\u2019t get along.<\/p>\n

Now, LIV is looking for funding after the\u00a0Saudis announced they were pulling out<\/a>\u00a0of the investment. The PGA Tour: still revamping.<\/p>\n

Next week, the tour will unveil more details about\u00a0tweaks to its new model<\/a>. It is expected to increase fields to up to 130 players (from around 72) and restore the 36-hole cut in so-called Track 1 events.<\/p>\n

The lesser events would be mostly for players to work their way into the top. It makes the futures for those events less certain, in part because sponsors won\u2019t pay as much to put their names on tournaments where they know the top players will be absent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think there\u2019s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn\u2019t pony up $30 million,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cSo that\u2019s the tough thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A return to New York under different circumstances than the Ryder Cup<\/p>\n

The trip to Shinnecock Hills on Long Island marks McIlroy\u2019s first tournament in the New York area since last year\u2019s Ryder Cup, where his\u00a0R-rated exchanges<\/a>\u00a0with fans marked a low point in that event\u2019s long history.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, an\u00a0\u201cUs vs. Them\u201d nature to the Ryder Cup<\/a>\u00a0that doesn\u2019t exist in week-to-week golf, where McIlroy plays most of his rounds in front of appreciative galleries.<\/p>\n

There was one moment at the PGA Championship last month outside of Philadelphia where a fan shouted \u201cU-S-A!\u201d after McIlroy hit a bad shot;\u00a0McIlroy shouted a profanity<\/a>\u00a0at the fan, but nothing more came from the episode.<\/p>\n

Now, he\u2019s back in New York \u2014 ready for whatever the golf course, and the gallery, throws at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it a rough week for me at times? Absolutely,\u201d he said of the Ryder Cup. \u201cBut it is what it is. If that\u2019s a price to pay to live the life that I\u2019m living, then I\u2019m OK with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Return to the past isn\u2019t possible; McIlroy lives the good life either way<\/p>\n

Now 37 and one of only six players to capture the\u00a0career Grand Slam<\/a>, McIlroy is one of those rare players who had it good both before and after LIV came along and disrupted the game.<\/p>\n

He said he is not a decision-maker and, regardless of what the tour rolls out for 2028 and beyond, \u201cI\u2019ll continue to play my schedule, which is getting less and less as the years go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the tour had to adapt to retain talent when LIV came along and grabbed Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, a five-time major champion who has since returned to the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

Now, their futures are in flux and McIlroy views the tour he never left in a different light.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that LIV looks like it\u2019s less of a threat,\u201d he said, \u201cI think the old ways of the PGA Tour weren\u2019t actually that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Now that\u00a0LIV Golf is flailing\u00a0and the sport has pulled itself out of what once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-645480","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\/645480","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=645480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}