Rory McIlroy intends to listen more than talk during ‘big boy’ meetings designed to find PGA Tour-LIV Golf solution

Were he not competing in this week’s $20 million Memorial Tournament, Rory McIlroy likely would be in New York for a significant meeting between representatives of the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. This meeting, scheduled for Friday afternoon, marks the first face-to-face since mid-March in the Bahamas.

“I was almost going to jump on a plane and go there in person,” McIlroy said Thursday after making four birdies in his last six holes for an opening two-under 70 at Muirfield Village Golf Club. “I think a video call will suffice, so yeah, I’ll hop on that call tomorrow. Thankfully, I was able to get a late-early tee time.” It appears McIlroy’s schedule worked out conveniently.

McIlroy, who has been involved in the ongoing negotiations between the PGA Tour and PIF, referred to the meeting as “big boy stuff.” The four-time major champion has evolved in his stance on LIV Golf since its inception in 2022 and now serves on the tour’s transaction committee. This committee has been meeting with PIF representatives every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in recent weeks. Friday’s meeting will include key figures such as PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan. Tiger Woods and Adam Scott are also expected to attend, along with John Henry from Strategic Sports Group, which invested $3 billion into the tour’s for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises, in January.

“We’re there to maybe give a perspective from a player’s point of view, but this is a negotiation about an investment into PGA Tour Enterprises,” said McIlroy, who shot an opening-round 70 on Thursday at Muirfield Village. “This is big boy stuff and I’ll certainly be doing more listening than I will be talking. And I think, depending on what the DOJ allows, it might have to be a very passive investment, and I don’t know what’s in their head, but I don’t know if that’s something they’re willing to do. We’ll find out in the next few weeks.”

McIlroy seems to acknowledge that LIV Golf, supported financially by PIF, is not likely to disappear anytime soon, suggesting that the split in men’s professional golf could persist. “I haven’t heard any of those guys say that they don’t want to play over there [in LIV] either,” he noted. “You’ve got guys that are on contracts until 2028, 2029. So looking a few years down the line, I would say that LIV is going to continue to sort of keep going down its path, but hopefully with maybe more of a collaborative or more of an understanding between the tours. Whether there’s some cross-pollination there where players can start to play on both, I guess that’ll all be talked about in the coming weeks.”