How Rory McIlroy not returning to PGA Tour board impacts golf’s future | Golf Today | Golf Channel

Todd Lewis joins Golf Today to report on the fallout from Rory McIlroy not returning to the PGA Tour policy board, exploring what it means for Webb Simpson, the PGA Tour-PIF deal and golf’s future. #GolfChannel #PGATour #rorymcilroy
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How Rory McIlroy not returning to PGA Tour board impacts golf’s future | Golf Today | Golf Channel
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ti What did we learn from the world number two today well we’ve learned that Rory m is on a complete 180 this has some history let’s go back 11 months in the summer of 2023 at the time Rory maory was a member of the PG policy board and then of course that surprising June 6th announcement the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia that caught everyone by surprise including Rory maoy who found out day of he felt bit betrayed because he was the face of the PGA tour in his competitive battle against livol and at the time he considered resigning from the PGA Tour policy board but those in his orbit including members of the policy board convinced Roy to stay on the board however later in the year in November Rory siding wanting to miss spend more time with his family wanting to concentrate on his game did indeed resign from the PJ policy board but he has observed what’s been going on in this fracture between the PGA Tour and Liv Golf and the game in general and he wants to bring it back together and just a few weeks ago he said that he wanted to be back on the PGA tour policy board and he wanted to replace web Simpson who was going to step aside in an agreement now there was going to be a vote by the policy board as to whether or not to bring Rory back on the board but today maroy announced officially that he has pulled himself away from consideration on getting back onto the policy board meaning web Simpson will stay in his role through the remainder of 2024 and back where went into further detail on that decision yeah there’s been a lot of conversations um sort of reminded me partly why I didn’t uh want to yeah I uh so yeah I think the it just it it got pretty complicated and pretty messy um and I think with the way the way it happened I think it opened up some old wounds and scar tissue from things that have happened before so um yeah I think it was and and it was I think there was there was there was a subset of people on the board that were maybe um uncomfortable with me coming back home for some reason um and yeah I think that you know the best I think the best course of action is if if you know there’s some people on there that aren’t comfortable with me coming back on then um I think web just stays on and and and sees out his term and I think he’s he’s gotten to a place where he’s comfortable with doing that and I uh I just sort of keep keep doing what I’m doing uh so yeah I it’s you know I put my hand up to help and you know it was I wouldn’t say it was rejected it was just it was hard it was it was a complicated process to get through to to put me back on there so um that’s all fine no hard feelings and and we’ll all move on you you’ve expressed your thoughts on this several times about that you I I don’t know if impatient the right word but you’re you’re you’re not happy that where we’re at where it’s taking this long to get anywhere can you still affect change from the outside and what do you think the holdup is so um so in terms of I would say I’m I’m impatient because I think we’ve got this window of opportunity to get it done because both sides from a business perspective I wouldn’t say need to get it done but it makes sense um and I just think so I sort of liken it to like when Northern Ireland went through the peace process in the 9s and the Good Friday agreement you know neither side was happy you know Catholics weren’t happy PRS weren’t happy but it brought peace and if that’s the you know and then you just sort of learn to live with whatever has been negotiated right and you know that was in you know 1998 or whatever it was and you know 20 25 30 years ahead no you know my generation doesn’t know any different it’s just this is this is what it’s always been like and we’ve never known anything but peace so uh that’s sort of how I it’s my little I guess way of trying to think about it and and trying to make both sides see that there could be a compromise here and yeah it’s probably not going to feel great for either side but if it’s a place where the game of golf starts to thrive again and and and we can all get back together then I think that’s a ultimately a really good thing Rory and I have been friends for a long time I played against him in the Walker Cup in 2007 and so he and I have talked all things golf uh wine parenting uh and so he and I talk on a fairly regular basis and um you know Rory is he’s always had great ideas of how do we move forward how do we um get the the love and attention from fans back from you know where we had it maybe two years ago um how do we grow our business I mean all all things related to the PJ tour and so I think those conversations just led to a thought of wanting him to be not necessarily in conversation but in more conversations and I think the the players on the board were very supportive of him being more involved and in those conversations I think they all see the vital role he plays not only on the PJ tour but he’s a DP World Tour member and they’re such an important piece of the future of you know the game of golf in our tour um and so his perspective is tremendous to us he’s a global player always has been um and so I just think his his views are important and the other guys feel the same and you know we just we kind of had to figure out okay where is his place how how can we um you know how can we honor uh our role as board members in our commitment to the tour but also bring bringing a guy at least to to voice his ideas and just see how he can help us and he’s been great he just wants to help at the end of the day um Wanted Wanted Not to cause any any drama or big stories just at the end of the day just wants to help and he he said that yesterday you know we had a great lunch just talking about how this can all work for the good of the tour and I think we’re all on the same page with that now of course strategic Sports group became an investor with the PGA Tour to create PGA Tour Enterprises and I can tell you in those PGA policy board meetings there have been discussions of not aligning themselves with the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia just sustaining that partnership with SSG and moving along on the PGA tour well Roy Mary is adamantly against that he thinks that a deal should be made between the PGA Tour PGA Tour Enterprises the DP World Tour SSG and the public investment fund so that is his main motivation and you heard web Simpson there what is Roy mooy’s Role well he’s not going to be on the PGA tour policy board but talking to sources I I’m being told that Rory is going to have a very strong voice in trying to get this deal done it’s not going to be on the policy board and details may be coming out very soon but he is going to have significant influence in trying to to get this deal between the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Enterprises and piff together Todd loose reporting from Quail Hollow on this ever evolving story with Rory mroy and the PJ tour policy board am I tell you what it’s it’s interesting not necessarily a turn about but it sounds like there’s a little bit of contention among the board members this is not just going to be some smooth Handover between web Simpson and Rory mroy yeah quite a lot of contention and I suppose if you wanted to take a charitable look at it you say this speaks to the kind of dysfunction in governance in in the PGA Tour these days if you want to be less charitable you’d say this is what happens when the clowns think they ought to be running the business of the circus and there there’s a lot of side arguments you can make here that you know Rory left the board uh should he be allowed to play a game of musical charot and come back or he’s too close to the Strategic Sports Group guys on the other hand you can say well he’s got relationships with all of the stakeholders in here including the guy who runs the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia he’s also the most prominent European guy and they’re also a factor in this deal and I suppose you got to figure out what matters more at one point when the game is in an existential crisis and Rory was told that he would have to go through a process to get back on the board but the guys who told him he’d have to go through a process were willing to put another player on the board who was aligned with their thinking without going through a process so when they bleat about governance it’s not governance it’s a Banana Republic when it suits them and it’s a representative democracy when it doesn’t and that’s ultimately why the tourist finding itself in the place they’re in now is because the question is what motivates people and I think there’s a lot of sentiment out there that there’s a faction opposed to the Saudi deal I’m not convinced that’s the case I think there’s a faction that wants a very conditional deal and Rory’s probably two lacks in their mind on the other side of that and not wanting consequences the the guys who want a conditional deal it’s very much focused on what is the pain to be inflicted on the live guys who might come back and you know they can litigate that as much as they want but what they’re really focused on is Revenge for June 6th because they weren’t informed or they had offers from Liv that suddenly had passed them by when when a peace deal is signed and they want heads to role whether it’s Jay Monahan or Ed herley the chair of the PGA Tours board or Jimmy Dunn the independent director that’s what they’re focused on they are relentlessly focused on Revenge for June 6th these are the kind of guys who would sit in the D room of the Titanic complaining that their soup was cold while the ship is taking on water it’s time to really have some kind of Reckoning shortterm to get through this crisis but longterm whether or not players ought to be in a position of power at all it’s a great Point part of the issue is these are highly decorated professional athletes they’re great at hitting a golf ball but to think they have the the mental capacity to handle the geopolitical questions not to mention the business questions that are in this argument you know do your job job which is to play great golf but I think they might be in some senses well out over their skis they’re governing by emotion right now and personal gripes which is always how a member-led organization has been run but this isn’t a sleepy nonprofit anymore you got to wonder what guys like John Henry sitting up in Boston who’s just put one and a half billion dollars into the tour think when they’re looking at this in terms of what they’ have gotten into and yaser Al ruman at the Saudi Arabian public investment fund he’s been willing toit was money on live even he’s got to look at this and say are these guys to really get into business with in the sense that there’s an amateurishness and there’s a personal griping that seems to be influencing the governance and this game is in an existential crisis we’ve heard from Rory melroy Patrick kley is the leader of the other faction on the board it’s time we heard from Patrick kley and what he thinks the endgame of this ought to be and the stakeholders in this game whether it’s their sponsors their tournaments their fans they all deserve some kind of clarity on this yeah there’s not a lot of clarity in these negotiations so far if they’re happening at all we’re going to go back to Quil Hollow and bring in Todd Lewis once again you have some more reporting on Rory’s position and if he’s really going to dig in and trying to get a deal done whether he’s on the board or not well Rory maoy and I agree with what aan has has said there in regards to these players putting together these massive deals Rory maoy feels that way as well I mean yes these guys are great for hitting an ad 175 yards but putting these deals together should be handled by Major businessmen now Rory mckoy does have an opinion on what should be happening if this deal does come together he really feels like there should be more of a global tour he actually said today that American players frankly just like to stay in America but there should be some broader growth for the game of golf with these star athletes from the United States and he has had several conversations with Yasser Al rayan who was of course the governor of the public investment fund for Saudi Arabia now there’s some sticking points that are still needing to be worked out to make this deal happen number one Yer Alber Mayan wants to have a team component he is very Adam about that very firm about having a team component to make this deal happen and and secondly there is what Aman was talking about too the consequences for these lift golfers if they want to come back and play on the PGA tour what will that be and there are roughly 192 members of the PGA Tour out here competing in 2024 and you’ll probably get 192 different answers so there has to be some uniformity with these members here on the PGA tour to make this happen but Roy maroy feels like yes this needs to happen from a Global Perspective and this fracture if it continues like it is we’re going to continue to lose fans at a greater pace so this needs to be fixed sooner rather than later guys incredibly complicated times on the PGA tour and and professional golf as a whole wonderful reporting from Todd Lewis