Rory McIlroy on expected return to PGA Tour policy board: ‘I don’t think there’s been much progress’

Rory McIlroy appears to be on his way back… to the PGA Tour’s policy committee. McIlroy left the board in 2023, when he was replaced by Jordan Spieth, but recently there has been widespread support for him rejoining one of the organization’s governing bodies.

Webb Simpson recently spoke out support McIlroy’s seat; Simpson serves on the policy council and the PGA Tour Enterprises board as a player advisor. While unable to confirm such a move, McIlroy on Wednesday at the 2024 Zurich Classic addressed the rumors as follows: Guardian newspaper reported.

“I think I can be helpful,” McIlroy said in response to a hypothetical question about rejoining the board. “I don’t think much progress has been made in the last eight months and I hope there will be. I think I can help the process… but only if people want me to participate, I guess.

“When Webb and I talked, and he talked about the possibility of leaving the board, I said, ‘Look, if that’s what someone else wants, I’ll be happy to take that position.’ And that was the conversation we had.

“… That’s the whole reason. I feel like I can be useful. I feel like I care a lot and I have some pretty good experiences and good contacts in the game and around kind of the broader ecosystem and everything that’s going on, I have no right to go back to the board. There’s a process that has to be followed, but I’m willing to do that if that’s the case is what people want, I guess.”

This would be a meaningful move for all parties.

McIlroy was vocal during his previous tenure on the board, constantly battling threats from LIV Golf while fighting for the survival of the PGA Tour. Last summer, he said he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” when commissioner Jay Monahan appeared to reach a deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund that sought to merge interests between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

Then McIlroy suddenly resigned from the board in November.

“I just felt like something had to give,” McIlroy said at the time. “I just don’t feel like I can put in the time and energy to do it. I don’t mind being busy, but I just like being busy doing my own thing. Something has to give and there are people there’s a council that’s spending more time and effort on it than I am.”

Other current player managers alongside Simpson and Spieth are Tiger Woods, Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati and Adam Scott. All six are on the PGA Tour policy council and the board of directors of the new for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises, which just received an investment of up to $3 billion from Strategic Sports Group.

These active players are joined on the PGA Tour Enterprises board of directors by former player Joe Olgivie and six other members, including Monahan, four SSG representatives and Valero president Joe Gorder.

McIlroy has been an interesting voice since resigning from the board last fall. He often talks about what a world tour would be like, something that would only be possible with the completion of the Tour’s proposed deal with PIF (in which the fund looks set to make similar investments into SSG and continue to combine the league’s benefits).

“I think it’s all just gossip,” McIlroy said in February. “I think there has to be a part of the Southern Hemisphere: Australia, South Africa. Obviously there has to be a part of the Far East, whether it’s Korea, Japan, China. Obviously the Middle East as well. We’ve been going to the Middle East for a long time, but obviously Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and then we go from East to West and back to the States in the spring, summer.

“I don’t think it will be too different from now, but maybe the end of the year and the end of the year might look a little different. I don’t think we need to ruin things.” , but there definitely needs to be some adjustments.”

McIlroy, who has been vocal that he agrees with LIV players returning to the PGA Tour without punishment – ​​for the overall health of the game – and continually preaches unity, also kept his distance a bit with Spieth and others in February. He left the group chat with other top players, instead holding a discussion with Spieth about the Tour’s need to finalize the deal with PIF and bring the entire golf world back on track. together. At that time, McIlroy described the conversation with Spieth as “candid.”

Rory also resolved his differences with other board members on Wednesday.

“[I would manage those differences through] compromise but also try to make your point as clear as possible and try to help people see the benefits of what unification can do for the game and especially what it has can bring to this tour,” he said. There’s a reason it’s not unified right now and there are still some hard feelings and things to work out, but I think at this point for the good of the game we all need to put those feelings aside that aside and move forward together. “