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Rory McIlroy arrived at his Canadian Open press conference with a pained expression on his face. He seemed, for the first time, to have resigned himself to a grim reality: the war was over.
The PGA Tour/PIF merger was public for a hair less than 24 hours; The bedrock of McIlroy’s last 18 months as a professional golfer melted like an ice cube in a blast furnace. Now it’s time for Rory to speak to the crowd for the first time, to do what he’s done over and over again during the fiercest struggle in golf history. It’s time again to defend the PGA Tour.
This time, though, McIlroy wasn’t particularly ready for the fight. His face was unshaven and his voice tired. He almost immediately admitted that he had been dreading this moment ever since he heard the news.
“Yesterday was tough,” he said. “I think it’s a shock, a surprise that. I wasn’t looking forward to this, to be honest with you.”
How can he be blamed? It’s one thing to give up your beliefs while hiding in the safety of secrecy — as McIlroy’s commissioner, Guy Monahan, has done behind closed doors for the better part of the past couple of months — it’s another to give them away by default. There was little McIlroy could do to stop the merger agreement, seeing as it had happened largely outside his knowledge. Short of retiring from golf altogether, there was little he could do about Saudi money flowing into the sport.
Once upon a time, McIlroy’s voice was one of the PGA Tour’s most powerful weapons against LIV Golf. While the tour was public and private criticizing Saudi “blood money” (their words), McIlroy showed up every week and stumbled upon the boys back home.
“PGA’s 21st win, one win more than anybody else,” said McIlroy after winning that tournament just a year earlier. “That gave me a little extra motivation today.”
But McIlroy wasn’t just an advocate of the tour on the chapter. There was a players-only meeting on the tarmac at Delaware Airport, led by McIlroy and Tiger Woods, that laid out a vision for the tour’s future; meeting nervous follow-on players softened by McIlroy’s defense of Monahan; Month-to-month conversations with players and stakeholders to ensure the future of the Tour is carefully crafted.
Then there were the interviews. Countless numbers of them, given to countless outlets, all with the intent – stated or unstated – of heralding the tour at a time of its greatest crisis in decades. It was a wartime effort, which came at the cost of his time and, more importantly, his golfing.
“I’d like to go back to being a golfer,” he said after an uncharacteristic cut in The Players Championship. “It’s been a busy two weeks, and it’s been — honestly, it’s been kind of a busy six or eight months.”
McIlroy’s hope at the time was that the hard work was over. The war will continue, but Rory’s mission is over. The stage was set for the future PGA Tour. Now, at long last, he can focus again on being a professional golfer.
It looked like things were looking up when McIlroy held a 54-hole lead at the Memorial Championship last weekend – his biggest effort since the disaster at Augusta. He said his game wasn’t perfect, but it was “coming close” in time for the US Open.
Then came Tuesday morning. McIlroy was not the most surprised by the news. He admitted Wednesday that he had learned that Monahan and PIF chief Yasir al-Rumayyan had engaged in talks. But he had no idea they were moving forward so quickly, or that those talks would represent not a Saudi partnership with the PGA Tour but a Saudi one. takes over Professional golf.
On Wednesday, he intermittently tried to be diplomatic.
“When I look at 10 years down the line, I think ultimately this is going to be good for professional golf. I think it unites them and secures their financial future.” From where we were two weeks ago to where we are today, I think the future of the PGA Tour looks much brighter as a whole , as an entity.”
When asked about the Public Investment Forum, he downplayed the moral objection to the round, pointing to comments he made nearly a year ago in defense of discreet Saudi investment in golf.
“Whether you like it or not, the PIF will continue to spend money on golf,” McIlroy said. “At least the PGA Tour now controls how that money is spent.”
But apparently some of the wounds hadn’t healed by the time Rory stepped in front of the microphone on Wednesday. He bristled at the suggestion that the two rounds are now equal (“Technically, anyone involved in the LIV now has to answer to Jay,”) and the idea of LIV players returning for the round without a forfeit (“There’s still a consequence of the proceedings, the people who left the PGA Tour hurt Irreparably this round”). His most colorful response in the entire press conference came to the suggestion that his PGA Tour made peace with LIV.
“I still hate LIV. Like me Dislikes LIV, he said. “I hope it goes away. And I absolutely expect it to.”
If McIlroy’s words are right Personal, because, well, they are We are. Over the past 18 months, he has taken it upon himself – certainly with some incentive from the Tour brass – to become the spokesman for this strange, deep-ground battle of golf. Hundreds of man-hours spent fueling the “new” PGA Tour? That one evaporated into fumes, and Monahan’s second saw the CNBC stage alongside Al-Ramayan.
There’s an argument that Rory is the player we should care least about in this business. His reputation is fine, and his livelihood won’t change—two guarantees not many of his PGA Tour peers can participate. But the tragedy of the past eighteen months is not what comes next, it is what was lost along the way.
When Rory got involved in this mess, he allowed himself to become a pawn. And when the tour reversed course, they played it like that. It helps that Monahan says that “Rory’s loyalty will be rewarded” – but what does that look like, exactly? The half billion he’s earned going to LIV is a good place to start, but what’s the hourly rate for one of the best golfers of the generation? What is a year and a half worth of championship golf for a player with Rory’s legacy? He definitely deserves a big chunk of that, too.
One of the only confirmed facts of Tuesday’s announcement is that Rory will never see his due from the PGA Tour. No amount of money will change that, because no amount of feeling will change the feeling he joined on the podium at the Canadian Open.
“It’s hard for me not to sit here and feel like a sacrificial lamb,” he said candidly on Wednesday morning. “[I’m] I feel like I put myself out there and that’s what happens.”
The war is over, yes. But we are far from peace, far from hell.
More Coverage of Integration on the PGA Tour: Player Reaction | 21 pressing questions and answers | 10 shocking discoveries | How did the merger come to be | Brandl Chambly Sounds | Rory, tiger left in the dark | PGA Tour-LIV golf schedule | Could this happen? Legal expert weighs in | Jay Monahan defends the decision