Four-time Major winner Rory McIlroy has confirmed he is still yet to take up European Tour membership ahead of the WGC – Mexico Championship, therefore, becoming the first tournament since his professional debut at the British Masters in 2007 that the Northern Irishman will tee off in a European Tour sanctioned event without membership.
“Whatever I earn this week in Mexico will not count on the Race to Dubai as I’ve not re-joined the European Tour,” said McIlroy ahead of the dual-sanctioned WGC – Mexico Championship, which is open to the top 50 players on the Official World Golf Ranking.
The three-time Race to Dubai champion also confirmed he will tee-up at both the WGC – Dell Technologies Match Play and the Masters Tournament – the only Major he hasn’t won – as a non-European Tour member thus losing out on a bucket-load of Race to Dubai points were he to do well in the trio of events.
“I was awarded Life Membership of the European Tour some time back but that is an honorary position which means you still have to re-join each year paying a membership fee,” he added. “I was, for one reason or another, going to re-join at the end of last year but I didn’t though I’ll probably re-join in May.”
The 29 year old shocked the European Tour at last year’s DP World Tour Championship after announcing his plans at spending most of the 2019 season in the United States on the PGA Tour due to ‘wanting to play against the best players in the world on a regular basis’. McIlroy also stated back in November that he had only two events scheduled in Europe – the Scottish Open and Omega European Masters.
With McIlroy now indicating he is likely to take up European Tour membership in May, it seems he will be teeing it up at the British Masters hosted by Tommy Fleetwood. If the Ryder Cup star were to join Fleetwood at Hillside Golf Club and play the Scottish Open and Omega European Masters then he would only need to play one more European Tour event outside of the Majors and WGCs to qualify for European Tour membership.
