RORY MCILROY: LIV HAS HIT LOW POINT AFTER BROOKS KOEPKA U-TURN
Rory McIlroy believes LIV Golf no longer poses the threat it once did to the traditional tours, saying that its Saudi paymasters will now have to spend “hundreds of millions” just to ensure it does not fall even further behind in the game’s civil war.
Brooks Koepka will tee it up on the PGA Tour again in two week’s time, less than a month after quitting LIV with a year remaining on his contract. It will be a staggeringly quick return, with the Tour welcoming back the five-time major winner into its fold, albeit with a $5m (£3.7m) fine and a few playing restrictions.
Three other elite LIV performers also fit into the criteria for the Tour’s new “Returning Member Programme” – Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith – and although the trio have all announced they will not rejoin the Tour before the February 2 deadline, there is no doubt that the offer will effectively remain open.
And with DeChambeau’s contract expiring in August, the Saudis will have to bow to the American’s reported $500m (£372m) demand if he is to sign a new multi-year deal, as the breakaway league’s biggest draw.
Little wonder, therefore, that McIlroy feels the controversial LIV project is at a low point in its four-year existence. “It’s not as if they made any huge signings this year, is it?” McIlroy told Telegraph Sport on Thursday, in his first comments on the saga since Koepka’s return. “They haven’t signed anyone who moves the needle and I don’t think they will. I mean, they could re-sign Bryson for hundreds of millions of dollars, but even if they do, it doesn’t change their product, does it? They’ll just be paying for the exact same thing. And they’ve lost Brooks, so they’ll be paying out all this money and...”
Yes, they will still have gone backwards. Anyone without a LIV bias will surely find it impossible to disagree with McIlroy. LIV has signed a handful of players in this close season, but the highest-ranked among these is Thomas Detry, the Belgian who is world No 57. Tyrrell Hatton was the last big-name capture and that was two years ago. Scott O’Neil, the LIV chief executive, has put a brave face over the Koepka news, but it is undoubtedly a seismic blow. As McIlroy’s delight proves.
“This is great as it gets Brooks back to where he belongs,” McIlroy said. “He is one of the best players in the world and anything that makes the traditional tours stronger is a good thing in my book.”
Another worry for LIV is that after the “framework agreement” was signed by the PGA Tour and the trillion-dollar Saudi Public Investment Fund in the summer of 2023, McIlroy became so convinced that a deal was necessary to unify the game. But after the talks stalled, McIlroy began to recognise that the PIF was not willing to bend enough.
“It’s difficult to negotiate when only one side is prepared to,” McIlroy said in a telling statement. And with the Tour taking on $1.5bn of private US investment – with another $1.5bn to follow – it became clear that the Tour had moved into a position in which a deal was not essential.
McIlroy made this clear in an answer he gave on stage at a business forum a few months ago. “We have to realise we were trying to deal with people that were acting, in some ways, irrationally, just in terms of the capital they were allocating and the money they were spending,” he said. “It’s been four or five years and there hasn’t been a return yet, but they’re going to have to keep spending that money to even just maintain what they have right now.
“A lot of these guys’ contracts are up. They’re going to ask for the same number or an even bigger number. LIV have spent $5bn or $6bn and they’re going to have to spend another five or six just to maintain where they are. Look, I’m way more comfortable being on the PGA Tour side than on their side, but who knows what will happen.”
McIlroy emphasised this stance on Wednesday. “As ever time will tell with all this, but I’m so happy to be with the PGA Tour,” he said. McIlroy has always been a proponent of the less-is-more argument and supports the plan to reduce not only the size of fields on the US circuits, but also the number of events staged. “I like where everything’s going and I like where the game is,” he added.
McIlroy was speaking here at Dubai Creek Golf Club after his first competitive round of the season and it is fair to say he has carried on his excellence of the 2025 season, during which he at last won the Masters to become just the sixth player in history to complete the career grand slam.
Seven birdies in his first 11 holes set up the world No 2 for an opening five-under 66 that took him one clear of Spaniard David Puig and Scot Connor Syme.
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