Rory McIlroy folds a bad hand
Rory McIlroy resigned from the PGA Tour Policy Board. This significant step can only portend bad things.
For the last two years, Rory McIlroy has been the face of the PGA player efforts to ward off LIV Golf. He’s been a lightning rod for controversy whether he was doing too much or not enough depends on where your loyalties lie.
Regardless, the stress McIlroy has endured off the course has certainly eclipsed any he’s felt on it.
From that perspective, McIlroy’s resignation makes sense.
Today, the LIV-PGA Tour battle (fiasco?) is entering a new phase. It’s no longer in doubt if LIV Golf will continue. That seems assured – at least for the near future. The battle, if not the war, was officially lost earlier this year when Jay Monahan accepted the PIF proposals to negotiate an alliance.
Rory McIlroy said all the right things and seemed to accept defeat as gracefully as a man thrown under a bus can.
Still, it would make sense for Rory to stay on the Board to provide oversight and influence over the developing “merger.”
Instead, Rory has turned his attention and energy to the new TGL league with Tiger Woods.
It looks like Rory McIlroy has finally seen the writing on the wall.
Golf is a business and business is about money.
If Rory has thrown in the towel on preserving the PGA Tour it’s a good indication there is little left to save.
That’s why this resignation is significant. The person who put his reputation, career, and friendships on the line to save the PGA Tour has set down his sword.
It likely means one of two things.
Either the negotiations between the PGA Tour and PIF are moving forward – despite recent rumors of a strained negotiation – or the PGA has negotiated itself into a corner that provides little maneuverability.
At this point, no one knows where the PGA Tour will get the money it needs to maintain its elevated events and ritzy new lifestyle.
In a newer wrinkle, investment ventures are circling like vultures for a piece of the PGA Tour prize. Their motive is always profit so who knows what changes they would demand.
I know one thing, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen and none of them are focused on the customer.
Ultimately, this explains why Rory likely threw in the towel on the Policy Board.
Why provide input when those asking for it don’t care what you have to say? Why work to save that which so many others seek to destroy?
Next. Camilo Villegas' inspiring comeback. dark
The future of professional golf has never been more clouded. Rory’s resignation is maybe the clearest sign in the last year about the future of the PGA Tour. What it tells us is that the barbarians aren’t simply at the gate, they are already in the building.