Rory McIlroy believes the “false economy” created by the threat of LIV Golf may now be putting some well-established PGA Tour events at risk.
The world number two and current Masters champion said he felt people had lost sight of how good the tour was before it too had a huge cash injection.
When the Saudi breakaway started luring away some of the top talent on multi-million dollar contracts during the early years the PGA Tour’s response was to restructure, creating eight Signature Events each with smaller field and prize funds of $20 million, plus generating a number of associated financial benefits.
However, the threat of LIV has subsided with its future in doubt after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – which had pumped $5 billion into the venture – announced it would stop financing it at the end of the year.
But further changes were already in the pipeline on the PGA Tour, including the contentious two-tier system of tournament rankings which McIlroy is not a fan of.
“It’s funny as they’ve done all this work (and) you start to realise that the way the tour was before LIV came along was actually pretty good,” said the Northern Irishman ahead of the US Open at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, New York.
“It was a pretty good structure, and everything sort of worked pretty well.
“LIV created this false economy where we had to up prize funds and had to cut fields and try to support the top players.
“I think (it) needed to happen because that was the only way to retain talent at the time, but now that LIV looks like it’s less of a threat, I think, as I said, the old ways of the PGA Tour weren’t actually that bad.
“An event like last week, the Canadian Open, potentially going to one of these Track 2s. Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry (second-tier) event. I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those.
“I just think there’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30 million, so that’s the tough thing.”
McIlroy is looking to win his second US Open – and first since his breakthrough in 2011 – and to become the outright leading European golfer by claiming a seventh major, one more than Sir Nick Faldo.
His victory at Augusta was followed by Wolverhampton’s Aaron Rai winning last month’s US PGA, the first time since the inception of the Masters in 1934 that Europeans have won the first two majors.
“Obviously it’s an historic start to the major season for golfers from that part of the world,” he said.
“I would say this is more a UK/European style of test than certainly the first two majors so it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to see a few players from Europe and the UK in contention.”
The last time McIlroy was on Long Island was for September’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage, when he and his family came in for significant abuse during Europe’s victory.
But he said: “This is different: the Ryder Cup is us versus them, very partisan, it’s just a different beast.
“Was it a rough week for me at times? Absolutely. But if that’s a price to pay to live the life that I’m living, I’m OK with that.
“New York is New York, and they’re going to make their voices heard, but that’s a good thing. That’s a good atmosphere to play in.”
