Rory McIlroy offers blunt yet pessimistic outlook on pending PGA Tour, LIV Golf deal

Rory McIlroy sounded rather gloom when the conversation surrounding a deal between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf arose.

The tides seem to be a changin’ — again.

At the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines three weeks ago, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and Tiger Woods expressed optimism about the tour’s negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV Golf’s beneficiary.

They said a deal felt imminent and it seemed like the golfing world could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Woods even declared on live television that the tour was in a “very positive place right now.” He added that a solution could come as early as this year, noting that “things are going to heal quickly.”

But the tone has changed significantly since then, especially after a meeting on Feb. 20 that included Monahan, Woods, fellow tour policy board member Adam Scott, PIF Chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Eamon Lynch of Golfweek reported, “Rumblings from informed sources suggest that [the recent] meeting at the White House didn’t go as well as Tour executives had hoped.”

Rory McIlroy’s comments at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Wednesday echo that notion.

“I think it takes two to tango,” McIlroy said when asked about golf’s state of affairs.

“So if one party is willing and ready and the other isn’t, it sort of makes it tough.”

He then went as far as to say that the PGA Tour does not need a deal with the PIF.

“The landscape might have looked a little different then than it does now over these past couple of weeks,” McIlroy added.

“I think a deal would still be the — I think it would still be the ideal scenario for golf as a whole. But from a pure PGA Tour perspective, I don’t think it necessarily needs it.”

McIlroy’s comments on Wednesday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational are a stark departure from how he felt 13 months ago at the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

At that point, the tour had just announced that it would receive a $1.5 billion investment from the Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a consortium of sports owners and billionaire businessmen who would invest in and consult the PGA Tour going forward. This led Jordan Spieth to say that a deal between the tour and the PIF “is not needed.”

“The idea is that we have a strategic partner that allows the PGA Tour to go forward the way that it’s operating right now without anything else, with the option of other investors,” Spieth said on Jan. 31, 2024.

“If the PIF were interested in coming in on terms that our members like and the economic terms are at or not beyond SSGs, and they feel it would be a good idea, I think that’s where the discussions will start. I think that it should be extremely positive at this point that the ship’s turning and it can only go on the right way from here.”

After Spieth made these comments, McIlroy called the American, and the two had a 90-minute conversation.

Earlier that week, McIlroy advocated for reunification, strongly disagreeing with Spieth, who had replaced McIlroy on the policy board just a few months prior. Hence, the lengthy discussion.

“My thing was if I’m the original investor that thought that they were going to get this deal done back in July, and I’m hearing a board member say that we don’t really need them, now, how are they going to think about that, what are they gonna feel about that?” McIlroy said about his call with Spieth in February 2024.

“They are still sitting out there with hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, that they’re gonna pour into [our] sport. And I know what [Spieth] was saying, I absolutely know what he was saying and what he was trying to say. But if I were PIF and I was hearing that coming from here, the day after doing this SSG deal, it wouldn’t have made me too happy, I guess?”

Thirteen months later, McIlroy has changed his tune and feels as pessimistic as ever about a pending deal between the Saudis and the PGA Tour.

“I don’t think it’s ever felt that close, but I don’t, it doesn’t feel like it’s any closer,” McIlroy admitted.

“I gave a lot of thought to it a couple of years ago, but less now.”

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.