Rory McIlroy drastically changes tone on LIV Golf

"What LIV and the Saudis have exposed is that you have a tour and you’re going and asking sponsors for millions of dollars to sponsor these events and you’re not able to guarantee those sponsors the players that are going to show up," four-time major champion Rory McIlroy said on the show. “It’s very hard. I can’t believe they’ve done so well for so long.”

As Hugh Kellenberger of The Athletic notes, PGA Tour pros "operate as independent contractors, free to show up when and where they want." He added that this means "few players" play three straight weeks and "some" play the week before a major championship and others don't.

"And while the PGA Tour has minimum event rules for its members and incentives for playing more often with the FedEx Cup playoffs points system, the idea that you’re not guaranteed to see everybody at one place most weeks has been accepted in men’s professional golf for a long time," Kellenberger wrote. "LIV does not have that problem — short of injury, its 48-man roster shows up at every event. While that to date has not been enough to merit sponsor interest on any sort of scale, it has the financial backing of the PIF — the Saudi sovereign wealth fund — to make its large payouts to the players work."

Ever since LIV Golf's inaugural 2022 season, McIlroy has constantly spoken out against the league.

In July 2023, as the idea of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour merging was still relatively new, the 34-year-old made his position clear when he said that he'd rather retire than play for LIV Golf.

"I think, at this point, I was maybe a little judgmental of the guys who went to LIV Golf at the start, and I think it was a bit of a mistake on my part because I now realize that not everyone is in my position or in Tiger Woods' position," McIlroy said this week. "We all turn professional to make a living playing the sports that we do, and I think that's what I realized over the last two years. I can't judge people for making that decision."

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) advisers introduced the idea of McIlroy and Woods owning teams in the LIV Golf League as part of a slideshow to PGA Tour policy board chairman Ed Herlihy and independent director Jimmy Dunne, two days after they met with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan in late April. The idea was "quickly rejected" by the tour.

Talk of the possible merger has been going on for months and it was reported this week that the PGA, DP World Tour and PIF weren't able to come to terms on a "definitive agreement" by New Year's Eve. According to media reports, however, all parties agreed to extend their discussions into 2024, though that comes without another defined deadline.