Rory McIlroy was talking about LIV Golf.
“Honestly, I’m rooting for it all to be over. I’m just so sick of talking about it.”
Those comments, per Golf Digest, were made early in the year …
The year 2022.
LIV didn’t end, of course — still hasn’t. And you’ll never guess who was talking about it again Wednesday at Torrey Pines, calling the current split between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf “unsustainable.”
“Whether you stayed on the PGA Tour or you left, we have all benefited from this,” McIlroy told a group of reporters on the eve of the Genesis Invitational. “I’ve been on the record saying this a lot: We’re playing for a $20 million prize fund this week. That would have never happened if LIV hadn’t have come around.
“I think everyone’s just got to get over it and we all have to say, OK, this is the starting point and we move forward. We don’t look behind us, we don’t look to the past. Whatever’s happened has happened and it’s been unfortunate, but reunification, how we all come back together and move forward, that’s the best thing for everyone.
“If people are butt-hurt or have their feelings hurt because guys went or whatever, like who cares? Let’s move forward together and let’s just try to get this thing going again and do what’s best for the game.”
About an hour after McIlroy spoke, there was (potentially) good news for him and anyone else who wants to see the best golfers in the same tournaments week after week: PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said a “productive” meeting last week with President Donald Trump and veteran golfer Adam Scott moved the tour “one step closer” to reunification.
“Candidly, that’s what the fans want,” Monahan said. “ … All the best players in the world competing with each other and against each other.”
More than once, Monahan said he sees one unified tour as opposed to a truce where LIV Golf and the PGA Tour would operate separately.
McIlroy said he also discussed the situation with Trump when the two played golf in early January and believes the president can help bring the tours together. LIV Golf hosts a tournament each year at a Trump-owned property (though McIlroy said Trump is not a fan of LIV’s format).
“He can do a lot of things,” McIlroy said. “He can be influential. … I think whenever he says something, they listen, and I think that’s a big thing.”
McIlroy itted his feelings toward LIV were much more negative a few years ago. But he said he grew to change his mind as he looked at his bank .
“I look at what I made in 2019 before LIV came around and I look at what I’ve made after LIV came around and it’s very different,” McIlroy said.
He added that he didn’t feel that way originally “because of the fracture” LIV caused in the game. “It wasn’t good for the overall game. It wasn’t good for either tour.”
The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns LIV Golf, announced a framework of an agreement in June 2023. At the time, they aimed to finalize the deal before the end of the year. But that didn’t happen and in early 2024 the tour received a $1.5 billion investment from Strategic Sports Group. There were reports the PIF was not happy with that deal, but late last year there were further reports that the tour and PIF were close to a deal – again.
Monahan said Wednesday the discussions with PIF are not just about finances; they are also about reunification.
“I think the only thing that really matters to fans and for the game is ultimately reunification. I think everything else falls out of that,” he said.
Posner is a freelance reporter.
