Rory McIlroy details radical plan to bring LIV Golf and PGA Tour together

Rory McIlroy believes a Champions League-style model could heal the divide in professional golf, bringing the best players from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf together more often.

McIlroy was a staunch defender of the PGA Tour in its battle with LIV Golf when the breakaway tour launched in 2022, poaching several of the top stars in the world on mega-money deals.

But the Northern Irishman has softened his stance of late, resigning from his post on the policy board in the wake of a framework agreement for LIV’s backers, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, and the PGA Tour to merge.

Talks are still dragging on and the split in the game remains, but McIlroy has given up the fight, with Jon Rahm’s sensational move to LIV in December proving the breakaway league is not going away any time soon. Four-time major champion McIlroy angered some of his PGA Tour colleagues when he said LIV players should be welcomed back to play certain PGA Tour events without penalty.

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But after refusing to accept LIV’s growing place in the game for so long, he has become intent on pushing for the reunification of the sport at the highest level. Speaking after his third round at The Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles on Saturday, he proposed a potential model for LIV and the PGA Tour to co-exist which also brings the best players to compete against each other more often.

“I think you would just create a Tour for the top 80 players in the world,” McIlroy said. “I think everything sort of feeds up into that one. The way I look at it, it would be like the Champions League in European football.

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Rory McIlroy has been one of the PGA’s biggest loyalists

“It sort of sits above the rest of the leagues, and then all those leagues sort of feed up into that, and the best of the best play against each other in the Champions League is the way I think about it.”

The PGA Tour has been criticised for not prioritising other markets outside of the United States in recent years, whereas LIV has a more global calendar with events in Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore and Spain on the schedule this season. McIlroy believes the PGA Tour must remain strong in the US, but there is scope to lay foundations further afield.

“This is the biggest market in golf in the world, so you have to take that into account,” he explained. “But there’s no reason why for other parts of the year that we can’t go further afield and play in some of those big markets.

“I think it would be beneficial not just for those markets and those fans but also for the tour as a whole and media partners and sponsors and everyone else.”