Rory McIlroy has admitted the emergence of LIV Golf has benefited everybody that plays the game at the highest level, with the PGA Tour updating “antiquated” elements of their Tour in direct response to the threat of the breakaway league.
Last week, the PGA Tour announced a major change to their scheduling from 2024 onwards which will now see eight of its leading events – excluding Majors – feature smaller fields along with the removal of the traditional 36-hole cut – following a similar model to that of LIV Golf.
These ‘designated’ events will be reduced to 70-78 players with elevated prize purses on offer as well as FedExCup points.
“I’m not going to sit here and lie; I think the emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefited everyone that plays elite professional golf,” said McIlroy ahead of the Players Championship.
“I think when you’ve been the biggest golf league in the biggest market in the world for the last 60 years, there’s not a lot of incentive to innovate.
“This has caused a ton of innovation at the PGA Tour and what was quite, I would say, an antiquated system is being revamped to try to mirror where we’re at in the world in the 21st century with the media landscape.
“The PGA Tour isn’t just competing with LIV Golf or other sports. It’s competing with Instagram and TikTok and everything else that’s trying to take eyeballs away from the PGA Tour as a product.
“Yeah, you know, LIV coming along, it’s definitely had a massive impact on the game, but I think everyone who’s a professional golfer is going to benefit from it going forward.”
This week’s Players Championship will offer a bumper prize find of $25m, up from $20m last season, with a staggering $4.5m coming the way of the winner, $900,000 more than Cameron Smith earned for his win in 2022.
Smith won’t be able to defend his title after defecting to LIV Golf, while Anirban Lahiri and Paul Casey, the second and third place finishers last year, will also miss out after moving to the Saudi-back league.
“Would it be better if the defending champion was here this week? Absolutely,” McIlroy explained. “But he made a decision that he felt was the best thing for him.”
