Rory McIlroy ‘paving the way for a move to LIV’, says his former agent

Rory McIlroy’s former agent, Chubby Chandler, believes the world number two’s U-turn on the PGA Tour’s merger deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund could be the first step in a shock move to LIV Golf.

The former agent to LIV Golf’s Lee Westwood and Graeme McDowell said the Holywood star lost fans by sticking up for the PGA Tour in its battle with the breakaway circuit.

He also interprets McIlroy’s change of stance as a sign he may be laying the groundwork for an eventual move to LIV Golf and brands his “World Tour/Champions League” idea as nothing more than a copy of what Greg Norman wanted to launch in 1995.

“It looks a bit like that doesn’t it,” Chandler said of McIlroy’s softening stance on the Saudis as a possible precursor to a LIV Golf move.

“I’m not speaking from any knowledge or heard anything, but if you were looking at it from the outside he has done such a turn that you would think he is paving the way for it not to be too bad for him if he signs with LIV,” Chandler told InstantCasinos.com.

McIlroy was left in the dark by the PGA Tour ahead of its shock merger announcement with PIF on June 6 last year and said he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” having acted as an unofficial spokesman for the Tour over the past few years.

But having said last July that he’d give up golf if the circuit headed by Greg Norman was the only option, a McIlroy move to LIV would be seismic for the PGA Tour.

“If LIV Golf was the last place to play golf on earth I would retire,” McIlroy said at the Scottish Open.

He’s since softened his view on the PIF deal, believing it’s better to have the Saudis investing in golf than disrupting from outside.

“They are still sitting out there with hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, that they’re going to pour it into sport,” he said when Jordan Spieth recently suggested that the Tour could go ahead without LIV now that they have a $3 million private equity deal with the Strategic Sports Group. “Not having them as your partner, I don’t think is an option for the game of golf.”

McIlroy resigned from the PGA Tour policy board late last year before his Ryder Cup teammates Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton signed for LIV.

Having previously said that those who defect to the Saudi-funded league “can always go through Q School” if they want to return to the PGA Tour, he now says they should be allowed to return without sanction.

“I think it’s hard to punish people,” McIlroy said. “Obviously I’ve changed my tune on that because I see where golf is and I see that having a diminished PGA Tour and having a diminished LIV Tour or anything else is bad for both parties.”

Former ISM boss Chandler has never been a fan of McIlroy as a spokesman for the PGA Tour and its chief ally in its battle with LIV Golf. “It was terrible for him,” he said. “He must have dreaded going into press conferences, to go through the diatribe he did. I firmly believe he was trying to do the right thing for the PGA Tour but why did he manage to put himself on the pedestal he did, and to allow that to happen?

“I think he lost a few fans; people got a bit fed up with Rory saying this, that and the other in the end. It was all engineered by the PGA Tour, that Rory would stand up for them. He definitely took his eye off the ball.”

Chandler believes the fierce opposition to Saudi sportswashing in the golf media was an example of brainwashing — a jibe that Greg Norman has also aimed at McIlroy.

“People have been brainwashed,” Chandler said. “Golf media for two years has hated LIV. Why? Because everyone has been told to hate LIV.

“I’m very lucky to have the knowledge I’ve got from 40-odd years in golf, and having stepped out, I can look at what’s going on and be able to say things because it doesn’t matter any more.

“The golf press has been absolutely indoctrinated by the PGA Tour, and they’ve been told ‘if you do that with LIV you can’t do anything with us’. That’s ridiculous.

“Some of the stuff that’s gone on has been ridiculous. If a golf course holds a LIV event you can’t host on the PGA Tour – it’s a golf course for God’s sake. The golf course hasn’t done anything. “It has been ridiculously childish.”

As for McIlroy’s suggestion that golf should create a World Tour that looks like soccer’s Champions League, Chandler said: “In 1995 Greg Norman had the idea. It’s bizarre that it was Greg, but that’s what his World Tour was all about. I think he was 65 and not 80 players, but it was exactly what they are talking about now, as if it is a new idea. Greg was that person, and Arnold Palmer was in one of the final meetings and Arnold Palmer stood up and said ‘guys, this isn’t for us’. And they all walked.

“It always was a decent concept. And when they had the World Golf Championship events, that was a similar idea, the problem was the WGC were really owned by the PGA Tour so you ended up having five events in America and one for the rest of the world, and the Americans didn’t go there.”

The WGCS might be gone but Chandler is convinced LIV Golf is far from finished. “LIV is here to stay,” he said. “I fortunately have met Yasir Al-Rumayyan, I’ve had the benefit of time with him, and it was very, very interesting.

“He told me about Newcastle before it all happened. They’ve got a lot of money, and you can see what they are trying to do. Is it sport washing? It probably is, but it’s only what other countries do. Other countries do exactly the same.

“Everybody talks about Saudi now, whether it be tennis, snooker. I see snooker is going there with a £2million prize money. I’m not sure they play for £2million that often. They are at least putting themselves out there and on the map. Some of the things they get wrong in Saudi will be put right because they’ve got all this international sport.”

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