{"id":1246001,"date":"2023-07-13T13:38:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/rory-mcilroy-says-he-would-rather-retire-than-play-liv-golf-events\/"},"modified":"2023-11-29T18:45:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T18:45:43","slug":"rory-mcilroy-says-he-would-rather-retire-than-play-liv-golf-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/rory-mcilroy-says-he-would-rather-retire-than-play-liv-golf-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy says he would rather \u2018retire\u2019 than play LIV Golf events"},"content":{"rendered":"
Rory McIlroy has made it abundantly clear how he felt about short-lived proposals that he and Tiger Woods could own LIV Golf teams and play in at least 10 events a season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf LIV Golf was the last place to play golf on earth I would retire. That\u2019s how I feel about it,\u201d McIlroy said after an opening 64 in the Genesis Scottish Open.<\/p>\n
McIlroy was speaking to the written press for the first time since documents were released on Tuesday as part of a US Senate sub-committee hearing on the framework agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which bankrolls LIV Golf.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before the agreement was reached, PCP Capital Partners gave a presentation to two PGA Tour officials entitled \u201cThe Best of Both Worlds\u201d that featured the McIlroy and Woods proposal as part of a lengthy wish-list which included PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan becoming a member of the R&A and Augusta National.<\/p>\n Neither had any chance of success even if McIlroy \u2013 who said he still \u201chated\u201d LIV when the framework agreement was announced \u2013 has now taken a step back from his role as the biggest advocate of the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s quite a bit of apathy towards everything at the moment,\u201d McIlroy said. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m apathetic to all the noise around it and as long as the tournaments that I play keep on existing I\u2019ll be very happy to play them and be a professional golfer and try to get a little bit closer every day to trying to master my craft. \u201cI\u2019ve tried to step up for maybe the guys that didn\u2019t have a voice early on, but I think with everything that\u2019s transpired over the last few weeks the players are going to find themselves more and more at the table to try to get whatever that is they want out of it.<\/p>\n \u201cAgain, as long as I get to play the golf that I\u2019ve known over the last 15 years of my career, I\u2019ll be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if the PGA Tour had failed to show the same loyalty to him as he, and other players, had to it, McIlroy added: \u201cI don\u2019t know about that.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think they were trying to do what was right for the Tour, which in turn means what\u2019s right for the players on that Tour.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I read a quote they were negotiating their survival.<\/a> So I think that\u2019s a very fair thing for a business to do.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" McIlroy was speaking after documents were released on Tuesday as part of a US Senate sub-committee hearing on a deal between the PGA Tour and LIV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1246007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[82,9051,105,6957,9663],"class_list":["post-1246001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the_tours","tag-liv-golf","tag-pa-news","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-saudi-arabian-public-investment-fund-pif","tag-us-senate"],"yoast_head":"\n
\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of new information there for me (in the Senate hearing), there maybe was for other people, but as I said, I\u2019ve almost been too close to it over the last year and a bit so it\u2019s nice to be able to try to distance myself a bit from it.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that I\u2019ve realised is, no matter what I do or say or try to show leadership, I\u2019m going to be just fine.<\/p>\n